Since having L.L. I have realized that all the books I thought should wait for when you are raising a child really should be read before the child comes into your life. Why? Well, you really don’t have time to read everything when it is happening. An example for us is the sippy cup. We had no idea that it is recommended to be off the bottle by the one year mark.
Once I realized this I scrambled to find a well recommended sippy cup in the hopes that we wouldn’t have to purchase numerous ones before we found a winner. To my dismay the starter sippy cup wasn’t a hit. L.L. just thought it was a toy, and never made it to any other rank no matter how hard I tried. I knew that it would take a while for her to come around to the non-bottle drinking, but I certainly didn’t think it would take a few months.
After using the intermediary one and the full-on sippy cup from Tommee Tippee we eventually got some leverage a couple of weeks ago. What didn’t work was putting any kind of ‘milk’ into it, clearly, that was supposed to be in a bottle. So we went with water. I kept taking the valve out so the water would pour out or helping her drink without the top. Just so she would realize that something is supposed to come out that is good to drink. I even let her have it in the crib, but that proved to be a problem. Go figure. I know all you BTDT (been there done that) parents are SYH (shaking your head) at me.
When she finally started (to appear) to understand that it was a drink I brought it out more often. Then one day it totally clicked! I took the valve out and let her tip the cup back on her own and she actually sucked the water out like it was a bottle – YAY! I quickly grabbed the thing and got the valve back in so she would remember. AND SHE DID!! I was so happy. We were finally transitioning.
This was about 2 weeks ago and we are still transitioning, I’m completely fine with it. What I learned is that even though you are late, according to standards, you are still fine. You think I would have truly learned it with our weight issue, but I guess I really am hard headed. What’s that you say? Stubborn. Yeah, I guess I’m that, too. Anyway, now we are sippy cup drinkers during meals now and I’m very happy to report that she loves water as much as her Momma does.
So there’s our story on getting even more growns up. More power to all you other parents out there in some sort of transition stage.
