on weaning

You may remember my post, weaning + bedtime routines which I wrote back in the end of March. It received a fantastic response with plenty of tips, hints, suggestions, and kinds words, which I really really appreciated. I promised to keep you all updated... so this is me keeping that promise. Better late than never, right?

I've decided NOT to wean him right now, after all.

That's probably not what you expected to hear, right? Well. Let me explain my thought process.

• Elliot only gets a bottle two times a day. One before his nap, and one before bed. Sometimes he gets a third, if he takes an afternoon nap, but he has been dropping that habit lately. It only takes him about ten minutes (or less, if he's super tired) to lay in my lap and suck down his milk, and then I lay him down to sleep {WITHOUT the bottle}- whether he's awake or not. He's figured out that bottle = sleep, and he doesn't cry anymore, even if he's wide awake when I lay him down. He just gets it.
• He happily drinks water, milk, and occasionally watered down juice out of his straw sippy throughout the day. He will also drink out of our water bottles and cups.
• It's not like he's walking around with a bottle hanging out of his mouth. He's also not sucking on it throughout the night in his crib. I understand the concern about dental hygiene, but I really doubt that drinking from a bottle for ten or twenty(ish) minutes a day will cause much harm.
• Elliot's world is about to change in a BIG way, with the arrival of his baby brother. I'm already anticipating some serious difficulty with him adjusting to sharing his mama. I won't be able to hold him as much, and he will constantly be competing for my attention. So, in my mind, why throw in another change right now? If it comforts him and helps him to still nap and sleep normally, even with the addition of his little brother, I'm okay with him having the bottle a little longer.

So, what have I decided to do? I'm not going to bother trying to wean right now. I think, once his baby brother is a few months old and Elliot has adjusted, we will try it again. At that point, he would likely be 20+ months old, and more capable of understanding. In fact, I think we will opt for the tough love method- one day, when I'm feeling brave enough, the bottles will simply disappear. If he asks or looks for them, which I'm sure he will, then I will just explain to him that he's a big boy now and big boys don't have bottles before bed. Instead, we will rock and read stories. Will it be tough? Probably. But I know we can do it.

Who knows? Maybe he'll wean himself naturally before then. He has already shown signs- sometimes he falls asleep after only a few sucks on the bottle, or (if we're out) he falls asleep without it. My original plan, had he been able to breastfeed, was to let him wean himself naturally. Perhaps he will let me know when he's ready.