Kicking the bottle to the curb

By Published On: April 1st, 2015

At Bea’s 9-month appointment, her pediatrician asked us to start […]

At Bea’s 9-month appointment, her pediatrician asked us to start weaning Bea off of her bottle and pacifier before she saw her again. Fast-forward to last weekend—just three weeks before her 1-year checkup—and that definitely has not happened yet.
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To be honest, we hadn’t tried very hard. (And by “hadn’t tried very hard,” I mean we hadn’t tried at all.) Bea is such a good sleeper and such a good eater that we were reluctant to rock the boat. Why would we take away the products that make our lives so much easier? It just defies logic.
But I suppose it’s the right thing to do. (Le sigh.) Mostly because the fight will only get harder—I know convincing a 2, 3 or 4-year-old to drop the paci habit isn’t an easy feat. And switching from the bottle to a cup will be a messy transition whether we do it now or later. Plus, I can’t lie … I’m a little nervous to waltz into Bea’s 1-year appointment and share my laissez-faire attitude about all of the faux nipples (still) in our lives.
So, for all of these reasons, this was the week we decided to embark on a nipple-free journey for Bea.
Sort-of.
Going cold-turkey on the pacifier was just too much for this mama to handle (and I imagine it’s going to be pretty rough on miss Bea, too), so we started by breaking the easier of the two habits: the bottle.
The reason I’d been dragging my feet on this for so long is because Bea bottle-feeds herself. That’s 10 minutes of hands-free freedom four times a day—and there’s no mess to clean up after she’s done. It’s glorious.
Another big reason I’ve waited is that I really wanted to skip the sippy and go straight for the big-girl cup … which, of course, takes a lot of focus and makes some serious milky messes. Since Bea’s appointment is coming up fast (and also because I could only see puddles of sticky dollar signs every time Bea giddily poured her formula out of her cup and onto her head, seat and the floor), I momentarily gave up my crusade against the sippy cup.
My decision was a good one; Bea handled it like a seasoned sippy pro. And I’m relieved to say that her new sippy cups are almost as leak-free as the bottles; however, she can now chug her milk in half the time, so my days of making and eating my own breakfast in peace are temporarily over.
We’re still working on real cups—currently with water, which is slightly less messy and costly—but now that Bea is handling their lidded cousins so well, I feel a little relief from my impending sense of urgency.
I know we’ll have to get around to putting the pacifier out to pasture with the bottles sooner or later. … But, for now, one out of two isn’t bad, right? I’ll go ahead and dub this transition a victory—and as you can see from the picture, I think Bea is feeling pretty victorious, too!