Bye bye bottle.

After months of trying to come up with a game plan for how we're going to stop giving Linna a bottle, this week, she decided to give it up all on her own. HALLELUJAH!

Linna has never been super attached to her bottle (or "ba" as we call it), but at a year we decided to limit her bottle feedings to once at night. Since bed time is our cuddle time, her bottle kind of played a big role in putting her to sleep. We also played with the idea of waiting until we returned to Minnesota to get rid of the bottle, as we have a 19-hour plane ride coming up in a month. However, three nights ago while Linna was having her bottle, she decided to chew off the entire end of the nipple. So... BYE BYE BOTTLE!

I kind of freaked out at first because she won't really drink milk out of her sippy cup, so her 8 oz. night time bottle was her only milk intake throughout the day (it's recommended that children between one to two years of age get 12-24 oz. each day). She does however eat cheese, and I make her smoothies with yogurt in them. After the "nipple-gnawing fiasco", I decided that this was going to be the end of the bottle, and Linna would just need to learn to drink milk from her sippy cup.

Since that night, Linna hasn't had a bottle before bed, and I just give her milk throughout the day (with her meals) in her sippy cup. She also has a sippy cup of milk before bed. She may be drinking the same amount, if not more milk than she was with her night time bottle feeding. I also give her water and orange juice during the day in her sippy cup (along with a liquid multi-vitamin).

After eliminating the bottle, Linna is still sleeping through the night (7:30 p.m. - 7:30 a.m.), and nothing really has changed. At Linna's one-year pediatrician check-up (before we left for Singapore), our ped suggested that we get rid of the bottle sooner rather than later, as kids can grow more and more attached to it. Although it was a bit of a messy situation (milk everywhere), I'm thankful that Linna bit the end off her bottle nipple, and made an easy transition into the bottle-free world!

Although we're now a bottle-free household, this means my baby is getting further and further away from being an actual baby. I guess I need to consider her a toddler now, and work on having another baby;)