January 11, 2014

Stop The Bottles!

One of the problems encountered by parents is on how are they going to wean their babies not only from breastfeeding but in bottles too. I just noticed that there are some kids that are still on their bottles not only on milk but in some liquids too (juice, chocolate drinks, etc.). Some even at the age of 6 or 7, they cannot sleep if they don’t drink their milk using feeding bottles.

Good for us that we didn’t have difficulties when we stopped Matt in using feeding bottles. In as early as 2 years old and a span of less than a month, he stopped in drinking milk from feeding bottles. He never wake-up in the middle of the night and ask for milk. This might be one of the reason na rin why he didn’t pee at night aside from using cloth diaper.

Matt and her Cousin Gwen (Taken in November 2011)
Here’s what we did to get him away of the bottles. You might also do some of these tricks.

Reduce. Drinking is like a vice already. You cannot stop it right away but you can eliminate the use of it little by little. You can try this in the morning. Replacing the bottles with sippy cup can also help. You can buy sippy cup with their favorite characters. Just like Matt, we bought the McQueen sippy cup.

Matt and his Cars sippy cup
(Grabbed from Facebook)
Encourage and explain. Matt used to “threw” when overfed. This is one of the things we used to encourage him. Mommy used to say: “Sige, kapag sa dede ka nagmilk, magsusuka ka.” (Does it seems like a threat rather than explanation? LOL.) Saying encouraging words may also help like: “Di ba, big boy ka na? E di dapat sa baso ka na magmimilk.Tingin mo si Daddy saka si Mommy sa baso na sila umiinom”

Praise them when using cup especially when there are other people at the house.

Hide. Try to keep the bottles out of their sight. You can either tell a story like: “Kinuha na ng moomoo ung bote” or simply, “Nasira na pala ung mga bote mo kaya tinapon na namin”.
Connive. One of the hindrants of making this a success is the other people at home. Just tell them that whatever happens, they should also do what you are doing. Lolos and Lolas are most often considered “konsintidors” when it comes to their apos. Just like when Mama and Papa spent their holidays at home, we saw Matt drinking his milk in one of his feeding bottles. Mama said: “Nakita nya kasi ung bote, dun nya daw gusto mag-milk.” Patay!
Divert. Oftentimes, when kids want something but they cannot express themselves, they will ask milk or bottles. One way to prevent this is to divert their attention. For example, if you think they are hungry, try to give them food or when they feel something awkward, try to comfort them by hugging of kissing.
Dilute. You can do this by adding more water than the usual amount. Just like on the first tip, do this little by little. This will make your kids hate feeding thru bottles and eventually will like to drink more in cups.

How about you? What did you do to stop your kids from bottles?