All Done with Bottles

In the last week, Caleb has added several words to his vocabulary including a new phrase ("I did it"), started actually playing with age-appropriate toys rather than spending every waking moment trying to get into stuff not meant for him, turned 18-months-old, and seemed to have grown into a full-fledged toddler.  Tonight he passed through another milestone leaving babyhood behind.  He is officially done with his bottle.

One of the few times that Caleb can be found sitting still and being held is when he has his bottle.

When I say Caleb is "done with his bottle", I really mean that we are done giving him his bottle.  I'm pretty sure if it were up to him, he'd keep it forever.  We finally (after months of talking about it) decided that he needs to be done.  Not only did we decide, we actually took action.  We threw away all his bottles (we were down to two bottles) so that we cannot give in and he cannot find them by accident.  We have tried the subtle switching over to sippy cups, but it didn't work.  We own every style of sippy cup (straw, handle, no handle, soft spout, recessed spout, etc) and he doesn't drink from any of them willingly at this time.

In the last few months, Caleb has become an expert of climbing up the kitchen stool and taking the bottle parts out of the dish drying rack and assembling his own bottle or as he likes to call it "Ba Ba".  The only part he doesn't do himself is to pour the milk into it.  I think the fact that he can assemble it himself might be a sign that he's old enough to stop drinking out of it.  To say that he is attached to his bottle would be a vast understatement (hence my hesitation to take it away from him). 

That being said, he does sometimes decide to turn it upside down and create puddles of milk and then splash in them (one of the reasons I desperately NEED to take it away from him).  Right now, my minivan smells of spilled milk.  The old saying that there is no use crying over spilled milk is wrong.  The smell in my car is worth crying about.  Its horrible.  If you don't believe me, you're welcome to come check it out in person.  If you're wondering why I haven't just shampooed all the carpet in the car, its because our heat also broke and our appointment to get it fixed isn't until January 2nd.  Until there is heat in my car, I will not be spending an hour cleaning the carpets in my car no matter how bad the smell is, we don't need to go anywhere that badly. 

The bottom line is that all of our other boys "gave up their bottle" when they were 13 months old.  None of them were initially delighted with the switch to sippy cups, but we threw the bottles out and after a day or two, they adjusted.  I have a million reasons why Caleb needed his longer (he already doesn't sleep as well at night, he has ear pain, he is my last baby, etc). 

But the time has come and delaying it is only going to make it worse (Plus, I'm slightly embarrassed for other people to see he still has one).  Also, we're getting our carpets cleaned on Tuesday and the last thing I want to do is have the whole spilled milk issue on our freshly-cleaned carpets.  Besides, the New Year is always a great time for changes, right? 

Right now as I'm writing this, Caleb has been crying off and on for the last 90 minutes and its 1:10 am.  Jon and I have been taking turns going in to console him, rock him, return his pacifier or blanket to him.  Nothing is working.  This is about the time I'd usually go ahead and give him a bottle.  All our bottles are in the trash though, so that's not an option. 

Before bed, we had Caleb throw all his bottle parts into the garbage.

I'm consoling myself with the fact that there is no guarantee that he wanted a bottle anyway since he did finish a full one right before bed.  Maybe he's having a nightmare?  Maybe he's just a middle-of-the-night-party kinda kid?  Maybe its teething pain? I don't know.  While he's added lots of words to his vocabulary recently, an explanation for being up in the middle of the night is not being given to me at this time. 

We finally gave in and are now watching a baby song dvd in the hopes that when its over, he will be ready to go back to bed.  We are also trying all our sippy cups in hopes that one will appease him.  I don't know why he's up or what he wants, but I do know that this is a season.  Before I know it, he will be able to articulate exactly what's wrong or what he needs.  I won't have to guess for much longer.  He is leaving his babyhood behind and running into the toddler years and I'm trying to keep up.  Like many of the milestones, its bittersweet for me.  At least he's still attached to his blanket and will snuggle when he's holding it.