The Great Milk Transition!!

The great milk transition, as I’ve fondly named it, has been a bumpy road.  The part I thought would be the hardest- having Asher change from formula to whole milk- has been a cinch.  It took one day of mixing half formula with milk and he was sold.  From then on it’s been straight milk for my boy.  The rough (and ongoing) part has been switching from a bottle to a sippie cup.  This has still yet to happen in full.  A day or so after moving to milk, I moved him to just 3 bottles a day.  This made sense to me as the doc said he shouldn’t have more than 3 cups a day.  It’s probably crazy, but Ash was a kid who continued to thrive on having a bottle about every 2 hours- even once food was introduced and he enjoyed eating.  Brandon and I quickly learned that it’s the bottle (not formula or milk) that he is deeply attached to.  We can literally show him milk from his bottle poured into his sippie cup and he rejects the sippie.  The bottle has to be his comfort item.  He’s never been one to attach to a binkie or blanket.  So, on we went for days with 3 bottles a day.  After about 2 weeks I decided to ditch the mid-day bottle.  He likes drinking water from his sippie, so I figured that he would still get enough liquid, even if refusing milk from a sippie.  Although I still try giving him milk in there.  His morning and nighttime bottle- forget about it.  (Make sure to say that with an East Coast accent.)  The kid goes into a sort of panic mode when we’ve tried to push it off.  Even if he sees the bottle in the morning or at night (meaning that we will be giving it to him) he still goes into this panic-cry mode.  Like, “I need my bottle now!”  So, for Brandon and my sanity, we’ve left it alone.  All the while knowing that Asher’s pediatrician wants no bottle in the picture at 15 months.  I get that she wants him to understand that his nutrition comes from food and not his bottle, but then I look at him and remember he’s just a little guy.  So on with 2 bottles we go.  :-)

Little update- as of July 10 (almost a month to the day after he turned 1 and we started the “switch”) he started drinking more of his milk from a sippie cup! Halleluiah!