Bottles Up!

I am done with bottles. Just done.

I'm tired of the way they have cluttered up my counter top for the past year. They tip over easily. They have multiple parts that get scattered all over the kitchen.

I'm tired of washing them, first by hand back in the breastfeeding days when Violet only had one bottle a night. Now they hoard all the space in the top rack of my dishwasher, leaving us running the machine half empty because the sink is full of all the cups and glasses that won't fit.

Yes, that is a bottle of cheap champagne trying to camouflage itself with the baby bottles.

When we first started bottles, it was once a day. It gave me a break from breastfeeding. It gave Matt a chance to feed Violet and bond with her each evening. And it was one new skill for her to quickly master. One bottle to wash each night isn't so bad. Then I started working. And pumping got old real quick. My milk supply gradually dried up and we committed to bottles full time. Eventually we switched to the simpler Avent bottles versus the excellent but somewhat cumbersome Dr. Brown bottles. And Violet gradually decreased her bottle feedings down to four times a day.

But after a year of this, I'm done.

When I was a babe and it was time to get rid of my bottle, my mom had a unique approach. Our family was living on the OM Logos at the time, a missionary ship traveling the world. When she'd had enough of the bottle, we very ceremoniously filled them with rocks and tossed them overboard, giving them an appropriate burial at sea.

For obvious reasons, I can't take the same approach. But I really, really wish I could.

See, I think my Friend is ready to give up the bottle and be a big girl. A few weeks ago, Matt made her bottles for daycare but forgot to screw in the proper inserts. In short, the bottles weren't going to work. Undeterred, her teachers optimistically poured Violet's milk into a sippy cup and sat her down. And although she had previously shunned milk from a cup, apparently she was hungry enough to drink it all down. And her teachers didn't look back. Teaching the kids to drink from cups is one of the skills they work on at school, and it looked like Violet had just mastered it!

Well, for whatever reason, Violet wouldn't perform the same trick for me at home. Whenever I attempted to give her formula from the sippy cup, she'd let it pool in her mouth and then spit it all out, tossing the cup to the floor with a hoot of displeasure. If there was water or apple juice in the cup she'd eagerly suck it down, but not milk. I was wildly jealous of whatever secret tricks they used at daycare and frustrated that it wasn't carrying over at home.

But this weekend, we had a breakthrough. I waited to bring out the formula until Violet was extra hungry. I gently warmed it. I poured it into the same type of sippy that has had so much success at school. Then I plopped her on my lap and presented her the Nuby just like it was a bottle. And that child drank it all!

And so, I'm hoping we can be done with bottles. Maybe not today, maybe not next week. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

A completely unrelated picture that I couldn't help but share!

Will I miss the snuggly moments of feeding Violet her bottle as she grows full and drowsy on my lap? Of course, just like I miss the breastfeeding days when we could nestle up together and share that special moment together. But I'm excited about finding new ways to cuddle. And I'm oddly excited about my extra counter space.

Next up - ditching formula for real milk!