Our family is moving through two major developmental developments this past week:1) We have stopped supplementing baby or using bottles.
2) She is now almost entirely diaper-free.
I know! Major changes!
We’ve supplemented practically since she was born since I simply could not make enough milk (yes, I tried everything). Since I believe in nursing her to sleep – because it works like magic! – and because I often did not have enough milk to satisfy her to sleep, we used bottles to top her up. And we’ve been doing that for … oh … 2.5 years? Wow ….
However, she seemed to need it less, and was sometimes falling asleep after nursing instead of during. Combine that with the nuisance of purchasing the organic goat’s milk we used, plus a persistent phlegmy cough, plus washing all those bottles … we phased away from bottles within a couple weeks. Now she often simply nurses longer and falls asleep, or I’ll lie down beside her with my eyes closed in the semi-dark (“Mama, turn the light on!”) and she slowly succumbs to exhaustion.
The diaper-free has been an unexpected delight. We’ve been working on it for a while, but ending up with wet clothes or floors or other things frequently. Too much mess and I would give up and pop her back into a diaper. But she seemed to be asking more to go, and the weather is warming up, and we just kind of went for it. We were in Vancouver for a couple of days, and somehow, being able to do diaper-free time there while at my sister’s house showed me it could happen.
What it looks like now: First pee in the morning is hard because she wakes slowly and is resistant to getting on the potty. After that, we remind her at intervals to go, and she sometimes says she has to go herself. I try to make sure we go at particular transitions (before sitting down to eat; before leaving the house). If we have a longer car trip to take, I might put her in a diaper, but generally not. I’ve had her at work twice without diapers. And we use diapers overnight, as getting her out of bed at that time would be too miserable.
So those are some big highlights with my wonderful big girl.