Bye Bye Bottle

We finally bid farewell to the bottle as of yesterday (6/17). Some people will think it's crazy that Xavier was still taking a bottle at that point (only at night) but he's my kid, so I don't care what those people think!! haha

We kept the nighttime bottle because it was a good routine and since he FINALLY started going to sleep on his own at 14 months there was no way I was going to mess with him at that point. A month or 2 went by and I thought about trying to ditch the nighttime bottle, but then our house sold and decided that he'd need that familiarity during the move. We've been in the house about 7 weeks, X is sleeping very well and is in a great routine, so I decided on a whim yesterday (seeing that it was his 18 month birthday and all) to see what would happen. My decision came in part due to the fact that he wakes up soaking wet every morning (even with a "nighttime" diaper on) and I'm tired of stripping sheets. I cut back the ounces a week ago and that didn't seem to make much difference.

It just so happened that X didn't eat much for dinner yesterday. So, I offered him a bowl of cereal just before his bath and he scarfed it down, then ate another entire bowl of cereal, and drank the milk. With his tummy full he didn't even seem to notice that there was no "ba-ba" offered to him after he all nice and snugly in his jammies. He still takes his Binker (his pride and joy) to go to sleep so he was perfectly fine with just that and his Skipit (blanket dog). We said our prayers, sang a song, rocked a few minutes, and I popped him in the crib where he assumed his normal head in the corner position. And that was it.....almost too easy! Tonight was a repeat of the same, so I guess that's it - no more bottle.

Now, if it would only be that easy to break him of the binker.....umm....I think not. Maybe I'll tackle that one next year!