Bottle Free

So made two challenges for ourselves last week, we wanted to paint and switch the kids rooms around, and the second was we wanted to get Cam officially off of his bottle. I was way excited about the first, and completely dreading the second.
When I took Cam in for his 2 year old apt. at the Doctor I asked him what a good age to take them off the bottle is and his response was "a year ago!!" I realized there must have been some kind of mis-understanding because I didn't get him on a bottle until he was 1- so I was a little bugged!!
So now that he LOVES his bottles and is constantly asking for them, I decided it was time. He was waking up a lot asking for a bottle, and he would wake up a lot more because he was soaking wet, so many things officially made it visible that it was time.
I realize that it is always the parents that make things harder than sometimes they need to be, but his bottle to me just made life easier, more convenient, and soothed him instantly, so I was not to excited. We planned to do it on a day fro would be home to help me be strong. So it happened to all fall on the same day!! We painted and endured some serious crying all in one day. Never try that- it isn't pretty!!!


We had Cam help us gather up all of his bottles and stick them in a bag. As we were gathering them all he just wasn't sure what we were doing. Then we told him we were going to stick them on the front porch and give them away to other kids. Well that wasn't cool in his book. We set them out there than Ali ran around to the front door and left him a awesome suprise. As he re-opened the door to see some cool CARS sets he was pretty excited and didn't care a thing about the bottles.
He had been wanting the Cars "sheriff" and "sally" really bad, so we got them along with a few of the other characters and he was so excited.
As the day progressed he hadn't asked once for a bottle. I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing. AS it got closer to nap time I got nervous. Since we were switching all the furniture around and painting I didn't have a bed to lay him in that would stay quiet. So we layed him in his crib and had to just wait to finish painting. He wanted a bottle pretty badly and we had to stay strong and let him cry for over an hour. It isn't pretty trying to complete a job and listen to your child crying and crying. Finally he stopped and I knew we made it over the first small hurdle.
As bed time came he was now in a different room, with part of his crib off the front so he could get in and out to learn to sleep in a big boy bed. Not a good idea!! Way to many adjustments for a 2 year old. He was so excited about his new bed, but bottles were not to far from his mind. I kept saying the bottles are gone and you got a "whoo whooo" that is what he calls the sheriff. As the night progressed and he was getting tired he finally gave up on the bottle and came out of his room with two binkies in his mouth. The funniest part of it all is he has NEVER taken a binkie!!! So there he was exhausted and walking around with two binkis in his mouth. He fell right to sleep, and I was so glad we made it through day 1 of NO bottle!!


The next day he asked a few times for his bottles and Ali and I just kept saying "your a big boy now, you don't have bottles!" Well he pretty much thought I was lying about not having any bottles, so he made his way to the counter and got up to check the cupboard with the bottles. He kept pulling some old sippys out and came to realize there were NO BOTTLES!!! It was cute to watch him realize, there are none. He still is struggling with the staying in his room without his crib, but at least he stopped asking for a bottle- it has been Heavenly!!!