Sunday, July 12, 2009

Wean without the whine? Yeah right!

So I actually had a few minutes to myself to sit and read an article in Parenting Magazine. I saw on the the cover an article about a subject that related to something I was currently trying to do, wean. So I flipped right to it. Kira is at the age where we should be breaking away from the bottle and focusing on cups more. Not a delightful time in any parents lives unless you are able to afford a day and night nanny who can deal w/the crying and whining. We are not so fortunate. I have tried to give her milk in a cup only to have to be quick on my feet and be able to duck in time to avoid the cup flying at my head. I can put anything else known to man that is safe to drink and she will at least try and likely drink most if not all of it, except milk.

Now back to the article, their magical advice on weaning the baby off of the bottle easily, offer a cup of milk starting at 6 or 9 months. I did that, well it was expressed milk then later formula. She didn't go for that either. Then their next big tip, refuse to give the bottle after 13 or 15 months. Uh huh, I must have missed the bit about avoiding the whine, so I reread the advice. Nope, that was their magical advice. I tell you a parent could NOT have written this!

My suspicions were confirmed when I read the tips on weaning from the binky/pacifier. Their advice there, and I kid you not they said to have the binky fairy come and take all of them away, cold turkey was best. Then the next sentence was after a few days the child will be used to it. Now that may very well be, and when we broke our other children from the binky we did just that HOWEVER there was MUCH whining, crying, fussing and all out fit throwing. Not for just two days either, I say 7-10 was about right.

After that I rolled my eyes, laughed and picked up Rolling Stones to read. At least I wasn't going to be spoon fed crap on a stick while reading that magazine!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

When my brother was born my Mum was trying to do the same. After two or three days of trying she decided on tough love and let him cry for a while. However when she returned to the room I (aged 5) was leaning over him, scrubbing his gums with a toothbrush whilst proudly saying 'I clean babies teeth'!!

Laura said...

My babies didn't use the pacifier for very long, so thankfully I didn't have to worry about that. My son used a bottle until he was, I think, almost 18months. One day we just didn't give him a bottle and he was fine. He asked for it a few times, but was over it. It was a lot easier than I had expected.