operonscript.com

I weaned my baby but lost my sling

7th February, 2009 - Posted by karen -

We recently weaned Evelyn off the bottle. I was surprised how well it went, actually. Since Evelyn was 9 months old I have been giving her formula or milk from a bottle. We tried weaning her off the bottle at around 1 year old with no success, despite the dire warnings of Evelyn’s doctor and our baby book. Evelyn just wasn’t ready to give up sucking on something and we decided we didn’t want to push her. In the summer (she would have been about 14 months old) we eliminated her afternoon bottle and she didn’t notice at all. A few months ago (she would have been about 19 months old) we eliminated her morning bottle. At first she was a little upset since she really enjoyed having her bottle first thing when she woke up, but she soon learned to enjoy having breakfast with us. About 3 weeks ago we finally stopped giving her the evening bottle, which meant she was completely weaned. That one was definately the hardest to do since I could always get her excited about going to bed by offering milk. Instead I am offering her a snack and a drink of water and then we brush her teeth, which Evelyn enjoys immensely (I am eternally grateful to whoever invented children’s toothbrushes with cartoon characters on them). After that I read her a few stories, sing her a song and she’s off to bed.

There’s only one problem. Evelyn won’t drink milk now. I had guessed it before, but Evelyn’s desire to drink milk came from the fact that it was in a bottle and had nothing to do with the taste of it. She happily drinks water from a cup but more than 75% of the time refuses to drink milk from a cup. (Oh and sippy cups are a total disaster - she just wants to play with taking the lid on and off and gets frustrated because she can’t). We tried adding ovaltine for a few days, but that seemed to give her gastrointestinal issues so we tried sweetening the milk with honey instead (note, this is ok for toddlers but not for young babies, it’s a long story) which is a bit messy but she seems to accept it. We’re worried about her not getting enough milk since she misses three things: calcium, protein and vitamin D. Fortunately she does like yogurt, so she still gets calcium and protein from that. I’m going to check with the pharmacist about giving her Vitamin D again (she had it when I was breastfeeding her), at least for the winter.

I think the relative ease with which we weaned her had everything to do with waiting until she was getting enough nutrition from other sources and doing it very graudally. We didn’t have a deadline and didn’t want to pressure her or rush things. So it’s certainly possible to wean a 20 month old baby without difficulty, despite what the baby books say. But I have to say we don’t really miss washing bottles!

In other news, I lost my baby sling. I’m devastated! I was in the process of packing my suitcase for going to the hospital for the second baby when we realised it was missing. We checked all the closets (multiple times) and can’t find it anywhere. Here’s the thing - we brought it with us when we went to France this fall and it seems quite likely we left it on the plane or lost it in the airport. It really bothers me because 1) I carried Evelyn around in it for a long time and I almost feel like it was a part of me 2) it was quite expensive and 3) I feel like a fool for losing something so special. People were always so interested in the sling and Evelyn really enjoyed it when she was smaller.

We need to get another baby carrier for Baby X so I need to decide if I am going to get another Didymos, another sling or another type of carrier altogether. The old sling worked really well for carrying the baby on the front, but we never really got the hang of the hip and back carry, which makes me want to try another type of carrier that might be easier to use. Also the sling was quite difficult to handle since it was about 2 meters long when undone and I was always getting the ends on the ground when tying/untying it. We’re going to look around locally and see what we can get. I’m seriously considering an Ergo carrier at the moment. I know a lot of people who use them and really like them and they look a bit easier to use and seem to have more support than the sling. Still, I am going to miss the old sling.