In an earlier post, I explained how we are potty training Mon Cœur (MC). At a little after two years, I realized we should maybe begin transitioning in a few areas: diapers, bottles, and pacifiers.
I am slow to make the pacifier disappear – it’s an insta-calmer- and she only uses it when sleeping and when she asks for it in the car. The longest car ride is one with a cranky-pants toddler who just wants to sleep and really needs her binks to make that happen.
We made a surprisingly quick transition with the baba (what we called her nighttime bottle) and are taking potty training day by day. What follows is our bottle transition story.
Either MC is just fabulous (well, I know she is) or these things combined helped with a really quick transition. A surprisingly quick transition figuring she was drinking an eight ounce warmed bottle of milk every night before bed (and sometimes suckered her Papa into another four ounce refill). We kept a few bottles in a bottom kitchen drawer, one that MC could reach. When it was time for bed, she would get it out. I’d fill it up, warm it and we’d go to bed, have a baba and read. This was the beginning of our bedtime ritual, and if we ever forgot it, MC would quickly remind us.
The first thing we did was make these bottles disappear, and we put her size cups in their place. Second, I stocked the pantry with cookies. We don’t keep cookies in the house normally, because the life expectancy of a container is never very long. But I bought some Oreos and put them in her snack cabinet. After dinner and bath time, we started a new bedtime ritual. I told her, “We’re not having babas anymore. We will have milk and cookies, then read and go to bed!” I said it with enthusiasm because I was happy to be having a few cookies myself! We’d come back to the kitchen and I would warm some milk in a tea cup and get two Oreos. I showed her how to twist and dunk.
She was more interested in that than eating the Oreos. She’d drink her milk and leave soggy remnants of half eaten Oreos on the table, and we’d go to bed. Halfway through a book on the first night she said, “Baba,” and I simply said, “We had milk and cookies before bed,” and keep reading our book. After a few nights she stopped asking for baba, and shortly after that she stopped asking nightly for milk & cookies. We still have a stash of cookies should she make the request, however she doesn’t make that request too often.
mamansmonde.wordpress.com 