Answer: Abby. Behind the cute little veneer and the cheeky smiles, it turns out that she's a force to be reckoned with. This kiddo doesn't get the meaning of "quitting cold turkey." I'm ready to start up a bottle addicts annonymous (BAA for short...giggle...like a sheep) support group in order to enroll her.
Hi, my name is Abby, and I'm addicted to drinking milk out of my bottle.
Hiiii, Aaabyyyyyyy.
No matter how useful the internet and What to Expect the First Year can be, neither is helpful in the slightest about how to convince my little stubborn one to drink milk out of a sippy cup rather than her beloved Playtex plastic. It's kinda like a lovey, except that she's never been one to hold her own bottle, so it's like a lovey that someone else supplies for her.
Here's the deal--she drinks whole milk like a champ, has from day one (yay!). But before I pat her back too much and declare far and wide what an absolutely perfect little girl we have, we quickly discovered that her love of milk only extends as far as the drop-in liner model. We have literally tried 5 different ways to deliver the goods to her, and nothing works except the bottle. Not a one. Not the sippy cup which she has grand times with. Not the sippy cup with no handles that she has grand times with. Not the cute little Valentine's Day cup with bunnies and hearts that she has grand times with. Not the super sporty yellow pseudo-straw cup that she is fairly indifferent towards. Not the borderline complicated red sippy that she hasn't embraced yet cause we haven't given it to her yet but is basically the same thing as the yellow sippy. It's uncanny how she sniffs out milk in these other cups and puts the kabosh on them in the blink of a second.
So after these alternate devices and about three other methods trying to convince her to accept the milk out of a cup/sippy, we finally decided to go the cold turkey route. It's like teaching her to sleep in her crib: we hated to do it, but once we did, it really worked and quickly, and then we kicked ourselves for not doing it earlier. So cold turkey it was starting yesterday morning. (I will also mention that we timed this when she's not teething, sick, or otherwise grumpy/out of sorts for other reasons. And, I kinda un/intentionally chickened out as well because I started teaching summer school this week so if Abby was going to be super grumpy, I'm out of the house all morning.) Cut to tonight, 2 days later, lots of time for her to be so thirsty that she just had to give in to what we, her wise guardians who know best, want. Pssshhhhh. I gave her a bottle at her normal time before her bath. There went that experiment.
We'll try this again, maybe when she's 8. I hear that's a good age.
"Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose." Bill Gates
3 comments:
Amy.
we had the SAME problem with Jonathan. We tried everything, everything. My advice is just to let it go, put it away and try again later. While it seems like a big deal now.. it isn't. Now if she's still drinking her bottle in Kindergarten, then maybe we've got a problem.
p.s. after I said this, have you tried the NUBY kind? they are soft and squishy like a bottle top (couldn't bring myself to write the correct term on the internet)!
I giggle at your modesty. :-)
All we have is NUBY, in fact. We have shelved the issue for a while, hopefully going to get the temp of her milk down so soonish so that when we try again, she'll be willing to drink cold milk.
Did it work to switch Jonathan over the second (third?) time trying?
And, I just discovered a tooth towards the back that looks like it's been there for a few days. Here I thought that she wasn't teething...
I've heard that some people cut a little bit off the tip of the bottle's nipple at a time until the baby realizes it's just not the same and no longer feels so attached to it. (?) Obviously I have no helpful experience to share. Good luck!
Post a Comment