The Jones Girls

The triplets love their baby bottles.   They love sucking on a bottle of milk and drift off to sleep for nap time or bed time watching a little Dora the Explorer or Baby Einstein.   I have been able to keep them on the same bed schedule for over a year now.      I have slowly been weaning them from their bottles.

In my experience with Savannah weaning from her bottle, she weaned herself at 14 months.  It was so easy and no big deal.    One morning she was so frustrated trying to get more fluid than the bottle would allow she threw the bottle across the room and she was done with bottles.  I handed her a sippy cup and she was so happy to be able to take a bigger gulp of fluid.    An important thing that I have observed between Savannah and the triplets with baby bottles is that toddlers still have a need to suck.   Savannah was so easy to let go of the bottle because she sucked her thumb and had her “Fi Fi” (blanket).     She was never into pacifiers.  The triplets don’t suck their thumb and aren’t into pacifiers.    I believe the Triplets have have a much harder time weaning from the bottle is because they love to suck on the bottle and since they don’t suck their thumbs or pacifiers, than the bottles are what they like to suck on.      I truly believe that most toddlers at age 2-3 will either be thumb suckers, pacifier suckers or bottle suckers.   

A couple of months ago I began this process.   I only allowed them to drink milk or juice & water out of , sippy cups during /the day.  I would let them have their bottles for nap time in bed as well as for bed time.  I would also let them have a midnight bottle too.   

On Thursday night Sept. 18th, I didn’t let them have a night time bottle.  They cried all night long.  It was a rough night.   I didn’t sleep all night and Cliff had to go sleep in his office at about 2am.   Yesterday I didn’t let them have their nap time bottle.  They cried for a bit and finally fell asleep.    Last night they did a little bit better without their bottles.  Today nap time was a little bit better than yesterday.   Tonight they are doing a little better than last night.   Maryssa is still awake and playing around in their room.  She will evenutally get the idea and fall asleep.

I give them a sippy cup of milk after dinner and they drink about 4-6 oz.    I give them a sippy cup of milk in the morning when they wake up and they drink 2-5 oz.   During the afternoon I give them sippy cups of diluted applejuise 50/50 and they sip for 1-2 hours about 6oz.   Also I offer them my glass of iced water throughout the day to give them practive with a regular cup.  So we are on our way to big girl cups now.

I have been having problems with them having extremily sopping wet diapers in the morning when they were drinking bottles at night time.   Miranda was getting really bad rashes from being in the wet diaper over night.   I have noticed that their diapers are much drier now and I think they will be much more comfortable in the middle of the night now.  Hopefully Miranda’s rash will now disappear.

With this idea of ditching the bottles and them having drier diapers at night, my next step is to start potty training them.    It was a bit difficult to grasp and tackle the potty training when they were still drinking  night time bottles and peeing about 18 oz woth of milk during the night.   So with no fluids after 7:00pm, hopefully I can start approaching the prospect of potty training them.