There is one thing which I can be confident about in life – my daughter will always keep surprising me. Every since she was born, H has been a milk fiend, knocking-back between 14 and 20oz a day. The first ‘sign‘ she ever did was for milk and I have got used to being greeted in the morning by an arm being thrust in the air, hand scrunching away at the end of it. So it came as a real shock when on Saturday morning I laid her on her sofa for morning bottle only for it to be thrown on the floor as she buried her face in the pillow tantruming away. And I mean tantruming – the head was flung back, the body rigid and the legs thrashing around. I was so confused and a little bit worried.
In that particular instance I decanted some milk into her beaker and she eventually drank some. Then in the afternoon it was a repeat. I assumed it was her teeth since at bedtime the bottle was demolished as normal. But Sunday went the same way, so either something was wrong or something had changed in how H now saw the world. So on Monday morning I took her milk to her in a beaker. She saw it, squealed and happily grabbed it, the same in the afternoon, the same at bedtime. There was no denying it…
…she’d self-weaned off her bottle.
But as the week progressed, she was also less interested in drinking her milk. Whereas it has traditionally always been gone within 5 minutes, she’s spent this week just having the odd few sips and then getting on with her day.
Since last weekend she has also been exhibiting a lot more independence in everything she does. So perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised with this sudden turn of events. But it has shocked me because it hasn’t been a gradual shift; It feels like overnight she’s now done with her bottle and she’s done with her big milk feeds. She’s obviously decided she’s too grown-up for that now. It makes me a little bit sad because everyday a few more of the remaining ‘baby’ traits disappear and she seems more like a proper small person. That time she was a baby now seems so short and fleeting. Plus there were no tantrums back then…
But in reality she’s a child – she’s going to grow and grow until she’s an adult. So I have to accept and embrace this. Plus the silver-lining is I don’t have to worry about how I’ll transition her from a bottle now! I can only hope she’ll one day decide she doesn’t want her sleep-time dummy as well, although I can’t see that one happening…
