Bye-Bye Bottle!

(I used Avent bottles with Thomas his entire infancy and Toby used them, too, until mere days before we left for Germany when he flat-out refused them, leaving me scrambling to find a new alternative--like I needed any extra stress!)



Luckily, Toby was happy with my first choice, Dr. Brown's!

First of all, I am not posting this to start a war, or to make anyone mad...I do with my children what I like, and you do with your children what you like!

With my OWN children, I have certain ideas concerning pacifiers and bottles. It has been my goal to wean them off of their pacifiers no later than at 18 months old and off of their bottles by 15 months (onto sippy cups, which many would argue are just another form of bottles, but for some reason, it doesn't make me cringe when I see a toddler sipping from one like it does when I see a toddler still taking a bottle).

Both of my children have made it easy as far as the pacifiers were concerned, and I will be the first to admit that, too! Thomas at 9 1/2 months and Toby at 6 1/2 months weaned themselves from the pacifier with the first onset of teething pain. I, particularly, was hoping Toby would wait a little longer, specifically so that he would take one as we flew to Germany, but he didn't. We made it through the flight and we've made it through life without the pacifiers.

I slowly introduced the sippy cup to Thomas at about eight months old. It was a gradual, easy process. He eventually took all of his fluids through a sippy cup except the feeding right before going to bed. On his 15-month birthday, I ceremoniously fed him his last bottle and the next day he had all drinks through sippy cups. The first 3 or 4 days, I remember he struggled a bit with that last feeding, but then he was OK.

I did not think to introduce Toby to a sippy until he was one year old! When I did introduce it to him, he wanted nothing to do with it! In fact he practiced volleyball with it...he'd see it and smack it away! It has been a very gradual experience with Toby, to say the least! But, he has got the hang of it, lost the total hate for it, and so, on Sunday, without a mental ceremony or even a thought, he had his last bottle! I woke up Monday and thought, "he's done, he's just done and that's it". He has taken a sippy cup ever since, it's been a bit bumpy especially at bedtime again but we have all survived! Yeah! Just in time--he'll be fifteen months tomorrow! Big boy!

Until later,

Emily