The bane of my existence

At this point in my life the "bane of my existence" is the BOTTLE!!! I've been thinking/saying this for a while which drove me to do some research on this term. What does "the bane of my existence" mean exactly? Well, it refers to a person and/or thing that is a constant irritant or source of misery. As I continued to research the term I found that over the years and specifically today the term is most often applied to something that may be profoundly annoying to us but is certainly bearable. Makes sense right?!?!? So, I have to say the bottle is the bane of my existence as it is "profoundly annoying" to me right now but it is still "bearable". Hmmm...

Why??? Well, EVERYONE says that you should ween your baby off the bottle at 12 months (this is 2 days from today for Lola). I've kind of been obsessing about this over the past two months (or more depending on who you ask). It's literally driving me insane hence the reason for my "misery". I keep thinking "How am I going to do this?". Really...HOW!?!?!

Ok, so Lo isn't completely attached to the bottle and she has been taking a sippy cup for a good while now but what about those mornings (like this morning) when she wakes up at 5:15 a.m. starving. Well, at that point, all I want is some sleep so I load up a 9 oz bottle and she takes it down in a matter of minutes....then is back to sleep for a couple more hours. Ahhh!!! Seriously, we need the bottle as parents.

I haven't really understood exactly why it is SO important to take the bottle away at 12 months so I researched this point further. Apparently, it makes babies teeth rot if you keep them on the bottle too long. What's the big deal about that right?!?!? My sister-in-law, Molly's, teeth rotted a bit when she was a baby and she had silver caps but she loved and embraced them....still to this day she is very proud of those silver caps by the way. So, is this the only reason b/c I'm not sure it's enough.

I decided to ask every friend and person I know how they handled the bottle thing with their baby and every single on of them cut their kids off "cold turkey" right at 12 months. This leads me to believe there is something more to this, however, I'm not sure there is....is there???? I think this is just what the doctors tell us to do so we do it. Understandable though.

With that, I thought even further into this. The fact is whether she is 12 months or 6 years old at one point she has to come off the bottle and it won't get any easier the longer we wait. So after fretting over this for over two months I've come to the conclusion that I guess I'll just cut her off. However, I think I'll wait until Monday after Lo's 12 month doc appt. Who knows....maybe the doctor will give me some extra reassurance.

Another funny thing I have to tell you. Well, it's not really "funny"....it may actually be verging on sad. As I've been asking around (for two months) about the bottle thing I realized that I've gone 12 months without changing the nipples on Lola's bottles. Oh man...that poor child! She's basically been using infant nipples since day 1. How sad is that?!?!?! Every time I tell another mother this fact they look at me with their eyes wide open and that is when I know they are thinking "Are you kidding me!". I mean Lola sucks down a bottle in minutes so I just never realized I should be changing it. Ooops!!! Oh well, I guess it's just another one of those "I'm a terrible mother" moments and I'm fairly certain I'll have many more. Oh the joys of parenthood....you gotta love it!!!