Bye-bye bottles.

Joshua has been officially weaned off of bottles for about a week now I'd say. And I am pretty sure it was harder on me than him. The first day, he was kind of whiny, like he knew something was off, but not quite sure what. 

We didn't cut them out cold turkey. When the doctor told up to wean him off the formula and bottles and make the big swap to big-boy milk, we started cutting bottles out. He was already down to only getting a bottle at bedtime and one for a snack between breakfast and lunch. Then we cut out the snack bottle, which was no big deal for anyone. Then—came the bed-time bottle. 

Our normal bed-time routine for the last, how-ever-many months. Is this. Around 7pm we start getting ready for bed, every other night joshua gets a bath first, then it's time for a book and a bottle, and some wind-down playing to kill the rest of his energy, then it's off to bed he goes. I loved his bed-time bottle, because as he has gotten older, he has gotten increasingly less likely to sit still when I want him to. Mostly because he would rather be crawling or walking and exploring his world. The bed-time bottle was one of the couple times of day where he would cuddle up with me and just sit still.

I miss our cuddle bottle time! But now, he REALLY likes book. Which is great, and usually he really likes only one or two books at a time, which means we re-read the same book about 4,654,347,432 times a day. Now our bed-time bottle has been replaced with a bed-time sippy full of soy milk and a book. It's not exactly the same, because sometimes he just wants to do it himself and sit on the floor. (sad face). But most nights now he will cuddle with me. It's a bit bitter-sweet to have such an independent little man. Most of the time it's great, but not when mama needs cuddle time! 

On a side note. We have discovered that Joshua likes his soy milk just fine. But he will only drink it out of one particular sippy cup. Well, that is not entirely true I guess, he will drink it out of other's but he drinks much more eagerly, and will drink the full amount we give him out of the certain one. The one he likes it in, has a softer nipple than the others, and also handles, maybe it reminds him of having a bottle? Either way, I am just glad he is taking the soy milk now. I am not nearly as stressed about him getting the proper amount of calories or calcium now. I also discovered this awesome yogurt that is dairy-free and made with coconut milk. (pictured below). I found this brand of ice cream when I was on a dairy-free diet for breast feeding, but didn't realize they made yogurt too! Joshua loves it, and so do I! The blueberry is especially yummy.

I recommend you try this, even if not on a dairy-free diet. It's amazing! Especially if you like coconut.

Bye-bye bottles :-(