Allow me to state something that will get me all kinds of Internet Advice. Xander still gets bottles.
I know, right?!?! He’s over a year, though! 15 months, almost! What am I thinking?! Now, before you get all up on my grill, Internet, let me assure you, I don’t care. No, really. I just don’t. He’s still a baby and he needs the comfort with all the changes going on around him, and I don’t let him sleep with it, or anything, and besides, it gives me a cuddle or two every day while he sits on my lap and gulps it down before going to sleep. For that alone he can take a bottle until he’s 20.
I know you have that one friend who is a teacher and knows a kid who had a bottle after he turned one and now he’s that weird kid who eats his boogers at recess. But still. I don’t care.
What I DO care about, though, is that he has started waking up (sometimes more than once) in the middle of the night and not going back to sleep unless we give him another bottle. This is utter crap and must stop. Last night we tried (ha ha ha, not really, but sorta) to somewhat Ferberize him about the wakeup bottles. But it doesn’t work for him. At all. Xander is the type of baby who gets more upset the longer he cries. We went 2 minutes, went in and loved on him and cuddled him and put him back down, then were going to wait 5 minutes to do the same thing, but by another minute of that he was crying so hard he was gagging.
I’m so not OK with this.
I’ve let him fuss it out before, where he’s just sort of halfheartedly whining and crying to see if I’ll give him his way. And I’m much harder on him at nap times, because I know he can do it. I know he’ll go to sleep if he tries. But at night something switches and he really does just need more comfort. Maybe I’m being too soft on him, I don’t know. But last night as I sobbed on the edge of the bed listening to him verge on vomiting because he was so distraught, I knew it was not the right thing for him.
So, we’re done with that. Now, this doesn’t mean that I’m not going to do ANYTHING about the bottle situation. Nope. Here’s what I’m going to do (because I know these details THRILL you). I am 1) adding water incrementally until he’s not getting any more milk and 2) not warming it up as much. The theory is: by the time he’s drinking room temperature water, it won’t be worth waking up for. I’m not foolish enough to think this is a flawless plan, or that he won’t wake up at all any more (not while he still needs the paci replaced) (yes, STILL HAS A PACI. Don’t care.). But I hope to get to the point where, when he wakes up, he no longer expects that bottle every time. I’m OK holding him or comforting him if he wakes up and is upset. That’s part of my job.
But he’s playing us for fools right now with this bottle thing.
He’s still ridiculously cute, though, so that’s good.
You know what….as my darling mother used to say. “Darling, he won’t get married that way!” Meaning he won’t be still sucking on the bottles when he’s 20 . Don’t fret so much about it…give him the bottles and don’t worry about it. In another year you’re going to be wishing you had them back!