This past weekend, we did something that was completely ordinary, but life changing at the same time. We bought Abbie’s last container of formula.
We’ve been using Target’s brand of formula since we started supplementing when I went back to work. Now that Abbie’s eating well and nearing a year old, we’ve started to make the switch to whole milk in her bottles. We’ve started with subbing an ounce of whole milk for formula this week, and will up it by an ounce every week until her bottles are completely whole milk. The guideline is to wait until the age of one, but at this rate we’ll be about 1/2 switched on her first birthday, and I think that’s fine. I’m confident that she’s eating enough during the day that her nutritional needs are being met. While our pocketbook is relieved (even on store brand, formula is pricey!), I am equal parts happy and sad. My baby isn’t a little baby anymore.
She has two teeth and there are signs of more coming any day now. She eats almost everything we eat, sometimes surprising me with what she likes (black beans are a recent favorite, which I didn’t really eat until I was a teenager) and what she doesn’t like (won’t touch a waffle – are you sure you’re my child?). She gobbles down yogurt, mozzarella cheese, pasta with pesto, toast, grapes, and pizza. She LOVES meatballs and ravioli. And water. Abbie LOVES water and drinks it whenever she can. In fact, we tend to leave her sippy cups around during the day so she can grab a drink whenever she’s thirsty…evidenced by her using both this past Friday night.
While this is all great and I’m SO proud of how well she’s doing, I can’t help but be a little sad. Before I know it, She won’t want bottles anymore. She already doesn’t finish them – there’s always at least an ounce or two left. She won’t want that last bottle at bedtime – the only time she really cuddles with me. She’s becoming more of a toddler by the minute, and I can’t believe how fast it all went. Everyone warned me…but I didn’t understand until now. Until I had a walking, babbling, happy little toddler.
Chris keeps using that word. Toddler. And while I know she pretty much is, I can’t help but hold on for one more month. One more last month before she turns one that I want to think of her as a baby, before she starts to become the big girl she’s already trying to be.
10 Responses
It goes by too fast! My little boy is about to be 10 months next week–double digits!! 🙁 I’ve heard that they’re technically a toddler at 9 months, but I refuse. He’s still a baby to me!
Girl doesn’t like waffles?!? What’s wrong with you Abbie?? 😉
Oh, I know exactly how you feel. Getting the baby off the bottle and formula is both liberating and heartbreaking. I had a hard time with it too. But man, does it make life SO much easier now that he just eats food and we don’t have to deal with all the bottle parts or the formula mess. Not to mention the savings. And I still can’t believe I have a toddler. 🙂
I’m with you on holding on to the baby before you can’t deny the toddler anymore. Aria isn’t walking yet, and that just seems like the mark from baby to toddler because she is nearly one. One and walking…the end of babydom. Bittersweet.
She is so cute double fisting her water bottles!
Thanks! We’re getting there…I’m counting on calling her a baby for these last 3 weeks or so!
I say baby until 12 months…so with you!
Seriously, I don’t know. She won’t touch them. Then again, maybe she’s just snobby and wants homemade ones and not frozen ones 🙂
I just started giving her milk the other week, but she’s had yogurt for a while now, so she’s totally used to dairy – she gets yogurt every day in her lunch. We started giving her the sippy cup of water right around 6 or 7 months I think.
Toddlerhood is so crazy. My squishy little babe is growing up fast!
So true. I’m looking forward to the no bottles part!
Thanks – it’s kind of ridiculous how much she loves that water!