Bottle-free

Well, I am once again living in a bottle-free household. Like every other transition is his life so far, Brandon decided to jump on the no-formula, bottle-free train with complete abandon. Unlike his brother and sister, who both fought every little transition tooth and nail, Brandon adapts to every little change we make and takes it one step further all by himself. Bassinet to crib, binkies, sleeping through the night, you name it, he made it easy.

For several months Brandon's been drinking four bottles a day and eating a ton of table food. He's never cared for baby food, and since I don't care for buying it or feeding it to him, we let him start eating whatever we were eating at mealtimes. About three weeks ago I decided to take away his bedtime bottle. He was eating so much at dinnertime that I really felt like the bottle was unnecessary as long as we replaced it with some milk in a sippy cup. I know he's not a year old yet, but I wanted to start the transition from formula to milk with plenty of time to spare--babies are creatures of habit, after all. Then he went and got another ear infection, and there was no way I was going to take away bottles when he was feverish and miserable, but once the ear infections cleared up I thought it was time to try to eliminate one more bottle from the routine.

A week and a half ago we decided to do away with the mid-morning bottle, and the little man didn't even seem to notice. That afternoon he refused to drink his after-nap bottle, too. I thought it might be a fluke, but he wanted nothing to do with his daytime bottles. Then last Friday he even refused to drink his pre-breakfast bottle. Saturday went the same way. Just like that. No more bottles.

Brandon inhales whole milk from a sippy cup all day long as he walks around the house, demanding snacks. He even tells me when he wants a drink by yelling, "Bot! Bot!" which appears to be his word for his cup. It makes sense--two weeks ago it was his bot.

I'm relieved to be done with bottle-making and washing but a little amazed that the transition was so easy. This baby of mine is determined to be a big kid. So much for my carefully planned six-week formula-to-milk switcheroo. The one thing all my kids seem to have in common is their inate ability to screw with my planning. And don't worry--I'm not getting cocky about how easy the third kid thing is--with every smooth transition I become more convinced that Brandon's going to be the one that refuses to be potty-trained until he's 8. He's just saving it all up.