College roommie is weaning her daughter (2 weeks younger than Allie) off the bottle, and seems to be having a hard time. It seems like the first year and a half of a baby’s life is all about taking food and in what delivery method it’s supposed to be done. Getting the baby used to breastfeeding, getting the baby bottle-trained. Then getting the kid to take a sippy cup by age 1 so that the bottle can be eliminated by 15 months. And then I just read fairly recently that I’m supposed to wean off the sippy cup around 13 months. What the heck? Then why even introduce it for such a short period? And then there are doctor’s suggestions/standards about not letting the baby go to bed with a bottle, not giving juice in a bottle (both for cavity concerns), not letting the kid run around with a bottle or a sippy, not letting a bottle or pacifier be frequent companion for the baby over the age of 1 so the kid doesn’t get “bottle mouth” when teeth are growing. Having something constantly in the mouth slows down speech development. Blah blah blah.

We got lucky with Allie. She nursed well and aside from an early-age bottle strike that lasted a weekend, drank breast milk from the bottle well. She would even take the bottle from me when we were bottle-training by giving her a bottle a day in preparation for my return to work. She got a bottle after each nap, but soon seemed to not care one way or the other, and would run off after being released from the changing table post-nap to go play. She’d have to be snatched back to be given the bottle, which she then takes without any issues. So when she dropped naps, we simply dropped the corresponding bottle feeding along with that nap, and she didn’t care. Then when she was down to 2 naps a day and I was running out of stored breast milk after her first birthday, we dropped the bottle feeding that normally came after the afternoon nap and replaced it with a snack. She didn’t have a problem with that, and as we introduced cow’s milk after her first birthday, we always served a couple of ounces of it at a time with her meals in a measured container with a straw. She would drink milk from that just fine, she drank smoothies out of a straw just fine, and she drank water from a straw and a sippy just fine. Basically whatever form we offered anything in, she took. We started the straw early, around 6 months, by plugging up the top of it with our thumb and transferring water from a cup to her mouth through the bottom of the straw when we were at a restaurant. That way she got to drink from what she saw us drinking from, and got used to the idea of a straw. Then as she got older and could suck, we let her use the straw the right way on the few occasions we gave her water when we were out. The sippy cup was only learned after she mastered the straw, because the non-drip Playtex sippies we got required a harder suction. I think this had to do with why she always choked when she drank water from the sippy (we’ve only ever served water in her sippy cups). For ease, we have been giving her water in her sippy cup with the lid removed, and a straw. Less stuff to wash, anyway. She’s been fine and seems to be over her choking on water thing as of this week. When the frozen stockpile of breastmilk ran out a couple of weeks ago, we removed that bottle feeding, I removed that pumping session, and she and I are on par now with only a morning wake-up nursing and a bedtime put-down nursing. I’d already put away the bottles a week ago.

I think the only person who’s sad about these stages of growth passing by is Jayne. Allie used to be put to nap by falling asleep on us as we held her while standing and swaying back and forth for 10-15 mins, then being transferred to her crib, which was a source of anxiety as the transfer may or may not wake her up and she may or may not go right back to sleep once in her crib. I was relieved, and thought Jayne would be relieved, when Allie decided she no longer wanted to be held and rocked to sleep for naps and instead would reach for her crib and practically leap out of our arms pulling at and hanging onto the crib railing to go straight in. It was a time-saver and a back-saver…but Jayne said she missed it and was sad to lose that cuddling time with Allie. Then as the bottle feeding sessions dropped off, Jayne once again expressed regret to see them go, occasionally telling me that it seems like Allie WANTs the bottle (which we haven’t found to be an issue, more like if you offer it, then she wants to play with it, but if you don’t offer it, it’s out-of-sight, out-of-mind). I think what Jayne misses is the intimacy of holding Allie for an extended amount of time. Our active little girl sometimes asks to be held or cuddled, but not that often, and not with everyone, and usually only for a minute at a time. She’s usually more eager to be off on her own exploring or playing and running.

The one-nap thing is going fairly well. Some days, Allie will seem to really want to nap at 9a, 10a, though. For the most part, Jayne has stopped giving her the opportunity to nap in the morning and moved the afternoon nap down from late afternoon to closer to 1pm, which is when it’s supposed to be. Friday, Jayne let Allie take two naps because she said Allie was so tired, yawning, rubbing her eyes, being crabby in the morning, that she must’ve really needed it. So she got two naps, each over an hour, but the second one was late so it made her bedtime later. Today, even tho she showed drowsy signs at the old morning nap time, I didn’t take her to her room and instead let her keep playing. We gave her an early lunch then put her in her crib 10 minutes before noon. She was out by noon and slept until 2:30p. Then given the longer awake interval before bedtime, she fell asleep during nursing, went right back to sleep after I gently transferred her to her crib, and has been in bed asleep since 7pm. I can get used to this. However, as with almost everything that I write on here, I’ve probably just jinxed myself.

(Today, my parents and grandma brought Curry House takeout over to celebrate my dad’s and grandma’s bdays together. My mom asked whether Jayne speaks to Allie while caring for her all day. I said of course. Mom said she was thinking that maybe Allie’s not learning to talk because no one talks to her. Grrrr, Allie is FINE.)