Finally, the day the Bee family has been looking forward to for 14 long months has arrived. No more bottles! We are a couple of months behind, here, but, after much trial and error involving sippy cups and other receptacles, we have finally found a viable alternative. It turns out that Emma really enjoys using a straw. This startling revelation, well, ah, revealed itself a few weeks ago, while we were eating out somewhere and I had, of course, forgotten to bring her sippy cup with me. The baby bee doesn’t mind drinking water from a sippy, but she will not drink milk, either hot or cold, from a cup. So, after seeing her slurp down some cold milk with gusto using a straw, the proverbial light bulb went off above my head and I was determined to find a cup with a straw that would fit the bill. With the help of my neighbors, who have so patiently listened to me wax both hopeful and pessimistic about getting Emma off bottles for weeks, I finally found a really good straw cup from which she contentedly drinks milk or water. Hoorah!
Emma’s Dad and I set a date for the Big Experiment and, of course, at the last minute decided we couldn’t do it quite yet and vowed we would implement the new SOP the following day. Naturally, we feared a change in her nighttime routine would disrupt her blissful 11-hour sleep cycle, which, for the most part, has few interruptions. And, though the first night brought a surprising wake-up call at 3:30 am, which set my heart to racing and my mind wondering, “Oh no, will she ever go back to sleep? Is this her new wake-up time?” the transition has been very smooth. We are on the fourth night of the new routine, which now includes dinner, with her milk in the straw cup, bath, teeth brushing, stories, a lullaby or two, then bed. Yay, Emma! Thank you for being such a sport.
No comments:
Post a Comment