Bye, Bye, Bottle

For some time now we've known that we're supposed to wean Isabel completely off the bottle. Our pediatrician has been making the recommendation that we make the switch around Isabel's first birthday, and now that's come and gone! She only drinks from sippy cups during the day, but first thing in the morning and last thing at night, there's nothing she likes more than her bottle. However, tonight was the first night that she went to bed without it.

She threw a HUGE tantrum - wailing, flailing, throwing herself to the ground in agony. We distracted her and then I sat her down on my lap with a big stack of books and a sippy cup with milk. Eventually, she took a few sips of milk and seemed to forget about the bottle. We read together, then Kyle played quietly with her for a while, and then he put her to bed without a fuss.

I should be pleased, but instead I feel regretful and a little sad. Our Isa is an active kid and 10 seconds of snuggling at a time is the most we get. She'd rather be crawling, investigating, climbing... not sitting still for hugs and kisses. Feeding her a bottle at night was the one time I could hold her and get my daily, unadulterated dose of baby love, and I have to say I'm going to miss it. I'm not even sure what the reasons are for the bottle cutoff, but as paranoid first-time parents we will, of course, do anything our pediatrician tells us. Maybe that's why you have more than one baby... by that point you know that your kids will turn out fine and you can go on babying them as long as it makes all of you happy.