Mind Retrofit

Daniel has refused to let go of the bottle and I have tried everything. I have purchased every cup I could find. I went through all of the websites and purchased the cups to help him wean off the bottle. I have been working on this solidly for about 2 years. I didn’t think it would ever happen. I have had visions of Daniel being 18 yrs old walking around with a bottle in his mouth. I despise the thing. The last time I tried to take it from him it was not a pretty sight. Needless to say we both had meltdowns and he got the bottle back.

The battle of will does not work.

For some reason I felt prompted to take the bottle away two days ago. Several months ago I found a Honey Bear cup with a straw and I decided this was going to work. This cup was going to be “the one”. Well it came and he would have nothing to do with it. However, I tried this time because I thought if he could figure out that he had control over the water coming out he would think it was super cool.  It worked! He has been drinking from a honey bear cup, he is not sucking but squeezing the bear and getting water.  That’s ok, small steps!

He hasn’t had a bottle in two days and we are both alive!

Since I took the bottle away he has started talking more. He has been asking me questions, like today he asked “Hey mom, why you make a coffee?” He started asking why on Monday and has been asking me more specific “why” questions the last two days. Another big thing is that he is eating different foods. Food is a huge challenge for us. He normally has a diet of yogurt, bananas, gluten-free pretzels, cereal, sometimes strawberries, and natural cheddar cheese Cheetos. I manage to sneak fish oil, vitamins and pureed veggies in all of his stuff. Usually in his soy milk and yogurt.

Today he ate bananas mixed with cream of rice.

He also ate noodles with cannelloni bean, pumpkin puree with a little garlic salt and olive oil, he grabbed cashews and a bowl took a handful put them in the bowl and ate them, asked for sunflower seeds didn’t eat them but asked for them they are in a bowl waiting. He is trying to find his oral stimulation I think. He never eats this much or this kind of variety so I am pretty happy about this.

However it is only day two and I don’t know how things will go.

He asked me for a bottle  earlier and it popped in my head the story of the five little monkeys jumping on the bed. So I told Daniel “Mommy called the doctor and the doctor said no more bottles for Daniel”. I have been showing him a baby doll with a bottle and pictures of babies with bottles and boys his age who have cups, I started doing this several days before I took the bottle. I explained to him I was going to have to take the bottle away because he is a big boy now. He just had his 5th birthday so I told him big boys his age drink cups.

My catch phrase for him has been “Daniel is a big boy he drinks cups, bottles are for babies”.

He is repeating this over and over to himself when he wants a bottle and he says “no, I drink a cup”. He found a pacifier, which none of the kids ever used but they played with them,(how do they find these things) he showed it to me and said “this is for babies”. I told him he could put it in his mouth if he wanted to, I was just trying to get him to put something in his mouth to help with the feeling of something new, he said “no it’s for babies”. Now he is carrying it around and using it as a visual to remind himself that bottles are for babies. Pretty amazing he thought of it on his own and is helping himself remember the rules.

I never thought this day would come the bottle has been my nemesis for a long time.

I have tried in the past to get rid of it but he just was not ready and it was an ugly situation every time. He just hasn’t had the verbal communication to be able to tell me and he didn’t understand why I was being so horrible taking his it away from him. Now that I have been able to explain to him that it’s not good for his teeth, he is too old, he needs to learn how to use cups so he can learn to pee on the potty and whatever else I have come up with that have been valid reasons in his mind, he is not so resistant. I hope this continues I guess the real test will be Sat. when we go to a social event and we see how he responds.

Hopefully it will be great for him, for all of us.