May 16 2008
Bottle Battles
Breastfeeding really is best for a child but not everyone is able to breastfeed for various reasons. For my own children, I was able to breastfeed for roughly one month but neither of them were breastfeeding well.
My oldest was not latching and I was losing milk production very quickly. My youngest latched perfectly and gulped down long pulls of milk, but he stopped gaining and even dropped a few ounces. After trying to pump my breast milk so I could skim it and feed him the fatty part between breastfeeding, all the while I had an active 3 year old who didn’t understand why breastfeeding took up roughly 21 hours of my day, I had to give up the ghost and switch to a bottle.
It was a heartwrenching experience and I equated it to being a failure as a mother, something that wasn’t true at all but I will go into that on another day. The main point is that by a month old, both of my kids were bottle fed. This meant that at a year old, I had to start thinking about weaning them from the bottle.
I was pleasantly surprised when it wasn’t as difficult as I have heard and it all came down to how I approached it. I have listed a few things to do to make the transition from bottle to none much easier.
- Never start with a bedtime bottle. Give your baby an evening bottle and then let him stay up for an additional half hour before settling him down for the night. When your baby is young, you won’t have much choice but as he ages and his bottles become further apart, drop out that bedtime bottle first. Trust me, not having to use a bottle to get him to sleep will be a life saver for when he is older.
- When your child begins drinking juice, never place it into a bottle and use a sippy cup instead. This teaches him from the start that the only thing that goes into a bottle is milk. He won’t get used to asking for juice in a bottle.
- When you are weaning your child, stop the evening bottle first. Instead, offer him a bedtime snack and a cup of milk. This will leave the afternoon bottle and the morning bottle.
- The second bottle that you should remove is the afternoon bottle. By the age of 14 months, my oldest was only offered the morning bottle and it was not associated with any sleep routines such as bedtime or nap time.
- Lastly, take the cues from your child when you decide to take the morning bottle away. You may find that you will need to take it if your child is not giving it up but it is much easier to distract him if he is not using it as an aid for comfort or sleep.
My youngest son didn’t want anything to do with his bottle by the time he was 13 months old, even before I was ready to have him give up the bottle but I took his cue and put the bottles up. My oldest was 15 months when he gave up his morning bottle but he didn’t give any cues. I simply didn’t give it to him one morning and he never seemed to notice. He just took the sippy cup, had a nice big drink and then ran off to start his day.
So weaning does not have to be a huge battle and can be fairly easy if you plan for it from a young age. If it is a struggle, don’t worry, you will soon get through it.
Sirena Van Schaik
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