Banning The Bottle

We received the bad news at our last Doctor’s appointment which was our One-year Well-Baby Appointment. We needed to kick the habit, get on the wagon, join ye-old baby-bottle twelve-step program. The doctor had mandated that we get rid of those much-loved bottles.

These are NOT the words any mother wants to hear. We thought we are doing well just to have arrived at the doctor’s office on time and with all three of the triplets AND the twelve-year old in tow, only to be given THE NEWS. “Bottles are addictive,” we were advised by our pediatrician.

We were advised that we had about a three month window to try and wean the triplets off of theirs before they entered the “Needy” stage which would make it really difficult, in fact, next to impossible, to wean them off of THE BOTTLE without a fight.

Our goal date, June 13th, 2007, the day my trio turns 15 months, was appointed as our day of reckoning. We had to have them all three weaned by this date, or face the horrors, trials and tribulations of trying to wean them during “Their Difficult” stage, as described by our doctor.

What should I do? Where should I start? With my eldest, I just didn’t know any better and I followed the precedent set forth by my mother and let him decide when he was ready to give up his bottle when he was good and ready to. I don’t recall exactly WHEN he gave it up, but I do remember him having it when he was two.

In retrospect, it didn’t seem to harm anything. After all, my baby sister was allowed to have her bottle until she was nearly three. I have a distinct memory of my mother and her best friend loading my sister into her car seat, and me into the back seat of our station wagon next to her, and driving us out into the country just so my baby sister could throw her bottle to the mama cows who had so graciously loaned it to her while she was a baby.

I think they must have made her agree to do this, making her feel like she was giving it to the new baby cows to use for their milk in some attempt ease the transition. She was turning three in April which meant that there were A LOT of baby cows to choose from. My mother actually let her pick the lucky cows, and rolled down the window for her so she could toss it to out the window to them.

Was it effective? I sadly don’t remember. I think we must have had a few tears and a few compromises with her, but over all it helped her transition to the cup.

I really wish my mother was around to help me, but sadly she isn’t, so I would just have to find some way to make this June 13th deadline work for us all on my own. After all, I don’t fancy myself enrolling my trio into the “Bottle’s Anonymous” program at the tender age of 15 months, but that’s basically where my pediatrician insinuated that we would be headed, if my tiny trio didn’t manage to kick their bottle habit.

“What to do, what to do,” I thought. I worried about it while trying to go to sleep at night. I pondered my query while in the shower, and over washing the dishes. Then it finally dawned on me. What was I thinking, worrying about all of this?

I was the weird mommy who had given her children sippy cups to drink juice out of when they were but three months old. Everyone had thought I was crazy, but I was actually desperately trying to find a solution for outings that would keep everyone calm and happy so that I could do the grocery shopping or buy them pajamas at the mall.

I had found cups that had very soft spouts on them (much like the nipples of their bottle so they wouldn’t be terribly confused) and these also had handles that conveniently fit over the sides of our stroller, which meant that they had a place to ride when they weren’t being used. They actually held their sippy cups before they could hold their own bottles. My trio had been used to these cups for over a year now.

I already had the babies acclimated to drinking their milk out of their sippy cups on outings and at mealtimes. All I needed to do was start substituting the sippy cups for their bottles at their “Bottle times” each day. I looked up and found that we were down to only two times a day when we would use bottles, early morning and just before bedtime.

I could do this. I started by eliminating that bedtime bottle. They don’t take it to bed with them anyways, so it wasn’t all that difficult. In fact, now they sometimes just have it with dinner anyways instead of having it in our laps just before bed. I still offer it, just in case, but my trio has let us know that they don’t really have the addiction the doctor warned us about.

We were even able to eliminate the early morning bottle. Did it take a long time to do this? The whole transition actually only occurred over the space of about a week. They were confused at first, but being triplets, they adapted really quickly. Thankfully, it turned out thatthey couldn’t care less if their milk comes in a bottle or a cup.

This Wednesday, we will proudly march into our pediatrician’s office, armed with the knowledge that we have kicked the bottle habit. Our set of fifteen bottles has been boxed up with little fan-faire and is ready and waiting for the next newborn baby who really needs them.

I will save the bottles for my super-duper garage sale that really must be staged soon. I never fancied having to explain to some police officer exactly why it was that I was throwing three bottles to the baby cows, anyways. In today’s times, I probably would have been fined or ticketed for littering, and that would be really hard to explain!