At just over a year and a half, our little one has been pretty good about transitions such as the transition to purée foods then to solids.
The doctor told us at this point it is important to get her off the bottle completely. Actually she told us that a few months ago and we tried to ween her off but was not successful.
Problem isn’t our little one not wanting to drink out of a cup or from a straw. She drinks everything from these. Problem comes when you fill one of those with milk she just won’t do it.
At this point we are taking the tough love approach and are making her quit the bottle cold Turkey.
We started this on Monday morning and we are on day 3. So far, she has refused every attempt at milk in anything other than a bottle. She has not had milk since Sunday night but we refuse to give in.
Actually she hasn’t been completely without milk. We have made her smoothies with milk in. She doesn’t have an issue drinking them out of her cups. Just plain whole milk.
We don’t like the idea of too many smoothies because of the fruit. Yes, fruit is healthy, but too much could increase her sugar intake. For now if it’s the only way we can get her to have milk, we are going to go with it.
Overall, the goal is for her to give up and finally drink her milk from anything besides and bottle. It is really frustrating that this is such a struggle. We really didn’t think this would go into day three but it has.
We really don’t even know how she knows when it’s milk and when it’s not. This morning I had milk in her cup. In fact I prepped it before she woke up so she didn’t see it. Once she was up I handed it to her and she pushed it away and refused to even try it.
Meanwhile she had no problem grabbing her other cup which was filled with water and drinking it down.
At this point we simply are trying our best to be patient but admittedly it is hard. Seems like such a simple task yet it’s not. Thoughts start flowing through your head and you start to worry that you are damaging your little one.
Is the lack of milk going to hinder her growth, brain development and everything else? I can’t speak for every parent but these are concerns we have during this transition.
Will we be able to successfully be able to break this cycle. We believe so but it definitely isn’t going to happen as quickly or easily as we had hoped.