The unthinkable has finally happened. I can now say, with some confidence, that Stella no longer drinks from a bottle. Ever. Period. Done. (At least not until she starts in on the family tradition of hitting the bottle. But that is a post for another day.)
At the time that we started with the potty training thing we realized that an unintended side effect was that her bottle consumption (which was limited only to nap and bedtime) had to be significantly curbed. If you are trying to set your child up for a successful night of dry sleeping you don’t send them off to bed with 8 ounces of liquid. So, we reduced consumption to 2 ounces each at naptime and bedtime, and waited for some cosmic cue to tell us when to make our next move.
One thing Stella has been acutely aware of lately is the difference between a ‘big girl’ and a ‘baby’. A lot of her I’m-going-to-be-a-big-sister books emphasize how bitchin it is to be a big girl because of all the cool things you can do, as opposed to those lumpy, useless babies. This concept has not been lost on Stella and she regularly corrects us when we dare call her a baby. (Ugh, the nerve!) We decided to capitalize on this idea with the bottle and tell her how only babies use bottles. As usual, the words sink in before the real meaning does. While staying at Dore’s the other day, she was explaining the finer points of how only babies drink out of bottles while at the same time holding out her bottle and asking, “My have more water please?”
Yesterday, however, she gave us the opening we were looking for. The standard operating procedure for naptime is: right as we walk through the door there is a bottle sitting on the counter which she grabs as she walks through to her bedroom for a nap. Yesterday, however, for the first time on record she snubbed the bottle (telling Steve that only babies drink from bottles) and asked for a cup. Oh. My. Lord. Could it be?
By last night, I had pretty much considered it a done deal, and offered her a tippy cup or nothing at all. Ironically, she went for the nothing at all. And today at naptime, after some serious conversation and a last ditch attempt of crying (on her part), she went to sleep with nothing but her and her thoughts…and three blankets…and a stuffed animal…and a copy of Runaway Bunny.
Our house may actually be diaper and bottle free for a whole month!