Genie In A Bottle

I don't normally succumb to parenting peer pressure, but lately I feel like I've had the screws turned on me about a particular issue: the bottle.  When the minions moved from the infant room to the toddler room they had to  trade in their daycare bottles for a sippy cup. They had already been using a sippy cup for water and juice for over six months, so the adjustment wasn't a big deal.

 However, Molly and Jack are almost 21 months old and they still use a bottle quite regularly on our watches, about 3-5 a day (breakfast, second breakfast,  elevensies, afternoon tea and before bed).  They are both great eaters, perpetual grazers, who love asparagus, bananas, Greek yogurt, hummus and pita more than any health nut adult.  Their milk habits aren't ruining their appetites. At the same time we regularly get comments and looks as if we've put an amber teething ring filled with crack cocaine around their necks.

My mother assures me that all three of us used bottles regularly until we were three years old when she brought us out to purchase our very own novelty "big kid cups" to drink from.  Once we had our grown up cups she got rid of our bottles and even destroyed our last glass bottle with a hammer in front of us.*  We moved on and embraced our bottle free lives.

Soothing  Molly & Mom - right around the time the minions dropped their soothers for good

 

 

We've been going around town and researching recommendations on line for the ultimate sippy cups to replace our aging, leaking bottles.  At this point my issue is more about bottle break-down than social pressure, Jack when teething can chew the tip off a bottle nipple in seconds.

A friend of mine told her boys that the Fire Men needed their bottles and that's why they had to get rid of them.  Since her boys are obsessed with anything Fire Man they happily traded in their bottles for cups - and haven't looked back.

Chris thinks we should ignore the comments and looks and let them keep their bottles a little while longer.  I'm still on the hunt for some decent, non-leaking sippy cups that don't explode when they're dropped from a toddler's little hands and am hoping to gradually replace bottles for sippy cups over the next few months before the terrible twos kick into full force.

Any tips on some good sippy cups for babies who don't want to give up their bottles?  Neither child uses soothers, so I haven't had to face this yet and my kids are indifferent to Fire Men at this point.


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*A little dramatic, but this is also the woman who encouraged us to draw faces on our Humpty Dumpty (soft boiled eggs) when we were done eating them and smash them with a spoon to mimic Humpty's "big fall".