Breaking up is hard to do....

June 1st....that was the day chosen for disaster to strike our relatively normal home.

It was time to say bye-bye to the ba-ba (aka bottle).

When Maggie came home @ 17 months, she was only drinking from a bottle. She would NOT drink from a sippy cup or anything else for that matter. It took us almost 4 months to get her to start drinking from a cup at times, other than nap/bed time. She finally accepted it but still needed a bottle to go down to sleep (whether at night or just for a nap). To Maggie the words "nigh-night" and "ba-ba" were synomonous. One did not exist without the other. We've tried a few times here and there in recent months to try and break her of this, without success. Oh the poor child will scream, cry, tear up her room, bang on the door & sound like she's being tortured(you get the picture) if she doesn't have her bottle. We initially tried to switch out the bottle for the sippy cup at naptime only. Nope...not gonna work. Then I decided, well, what if we just put water in her bottle and hope she just gets disinterested in it, since it doesn't have milk in it....nope, didn't work. She would just look at me like I was crazy. She wanted her milk and she wanted it in a bottle. Period.

Here's the challenge....if we don't break her of this habit of having to have a bottle (or a sippy cup for that matter) the child will never get potty trained. Now, she's not showing any interest in potty training yet, but I am just trying to get prepared, as everything takes a little longer than "typical" with Maggie.

The hardest part is that for my sweet child, that bottle is her security blanket. It is something she has control over. She knows it is hers. She knows that she can grasp it, hold on to it, drink or not drink the milk, but it's with her always. She doesn't know how to put herself to sleep without a bottle easily. It is a major fight and honestly the only reason she falls asleep is out of pure exhaustion.

So, yesterday, I gave her a sippy cup of milk at naptime. I wish I could show you the look on her face. She was like....Capital N.....Capital O! I explained to her ( I know...she's 2) that she's a big girl and that she doesn't need her baba. If she's thirsty she can have some milk out of her sippy cup. She wasn't buying it. I gave it to her, she quickly threw it to the floor and starting her wailing. My heart breaks for her but when will it be the right time? There will never be the right time to do it and it will only get worse as time goes on. I told her I loved her and closed the door behind me. 45 tortuous minutes later, I hear silence, but I dare not open the door quite yet. Another 15 minutes passes and I gently crack open the door to find her room in complete upheaval and my poor baby out cold on the bed. She only slept for an hour and poor thing seemed quite distraught when she woke up. Oh.man.

We were dreading night time. I think she knew what was up. She started saying baba before I could even get to the kitchen. I calmly explained to her that she was going to get her milk in her big girl sippy cup tonight and go to bed. Not. Going. To. Happen. She took it while crying and BEGGED me to go into Momma's big bed. I caved. I thought...well, if I can get her to drink from the sippy cup and not the bottle, and she has to fall asleep in our bed, then fine. Well, she played her momma and daddy good. That was at 8pm....10pm and she still isn't asleep and now is saying something that neither of us can understand. So, I said, Maggie, show Momma want you want. She takes my hand, walks me to the kitchen and says up, momma. Great. She's taken me to the cabinet with all her sippy cups and her bottles. Ugh. So, I put her up on the counter and she opens the cabinet door. (I was cringing...please don't see the 10 bottles right there in front of you!!) And she goes for her other sippy cup that has handles on it. Apparently she wanted this one, versus the one without handles that I gave her. I couldn't believe it...thank you Jesus :) So, I pour her milk from one cup to another and take her to her bed. Do you think that was it? Nope.

She throws the cup, crying in her bed, refusing to lay down. I tell her good night and close the door behind me. I return to our room, turn on the monitor and hear "baba momma" "baba daddy" "no sippy" "more baba" and then out of no where we hear "bye bye baba" and that was it. She finally fell asleep about 10:30 and was sound asleep when I left for work this morning.

However, her daddy called me @ 7am saying that she was wide awake and crying for her baba. (She normally doesn't wake up before 8:30am)

Needless to say it was a rough day/night. I have a feeling that this will take a while. Daddy has day #2 of breaking up today...we'll see how that goes. It will get worse before it gets better (that's typically how it works in our house anyway).

As a mother, it is so hard to see your child so distraught, especially when you are the one "causing" it. Maggie doesn't understand what is going on. She doesn't see the big picture. She doesn't care that she will need to use the big girl potty one day soon. She doesn't care. She only cares about her baba. Her schedule. Her security. How she is feeling today. Oh the challenges of being a parent and finding the fine lines of helping your child grow and mature. Pray that sweet Maggie will be able to feel safe and secure to go to bed without anything, and that her momma & daddy will have the patience to go through this.

After all....breaking up is hard to do!