No More Bottles

We started weaning Abby off the bottle when we got home from visiting family in the Midwest for the holidays. We went about it slowly because she wasn't drinking more than a couple ounces a day from her straw cups (she couldn't get the hang of sippy cups, so we switched to cups with straws when we started). Her pediatrician said that as long as she was off the bottle by around 15 months, it was no big deal. We'd already gotten to the point where she was only getting a bottle before naps and before bedtime. I always gave her a cup with meals, even though she didn't drink much. We started with the before-bed bottle and it went much better than I expected. She never complained when she didn't get a bottle anymore.

Since the bedtime bottle went so well, we moved on to the first nap bottle. Things were a little bumpier with this one, but not too bad. Then we had to travel to California and Colorado in the same week. I resorted back to giving her a bottle to get to sleep while travelling to keep her from crying herself to sleep. When we got back from Colorado we knew we were going to be moving, so we decided to wait to wean her until we were settled here since there was too much going on for her. By this time, she was drinking from her cups really well, so I switched her to water only in her bottles. We also went ahead and cut out the bedtime bottle since that was the one she had the least trouble with. Switching to water worked well because she wouldn't drink as much while in her crib. Sometimes she'd finish the whole bottle (I'd give her about 5 oz.), but most days she'd only drink a couple ounces.

Once we were here in Colorado for a few days, it was clear that Abby was feeling settled here, so I decided to just take the bottle away cold turkey. She hasn't even missed it! The first time I put her down for a nap without a bottle, she did reach for it, but she didn't fuss at all when it wasn't there. She just looked at me like "Oh well." It's been a week now, and she's been going down for naps just as easily as before.