Sippy Cup Wars

TheFry will be 1 year old 19 days. He will stop drinking formula (YAAAAAYYYYYY!!!) and he will no longer be using a bottle...

...or so we hope. You see, he's getting to that age when "training" is difficult. He has developed preferences.

Until about a week or two ago, he had a clear preference for the bottle. I would offer him a sippy cup at lunch time and he would scream and push it away vehemently. I was desperate, wondering what I should do - should I force him to change his ways against his will, or should I go easy on him? He is still a baby, after all.

In the end, I decided switching to a sippy cup was the best thing. I didn't foresee it getting any easier in the future. Also, I deduced that it would make everyone happier in the short-term long run. Within a month or two, he would be able to hold his own cup, he would be able to eat his own meals, and MamaFish and PapaFish could finally get back some of the sanity they had before TheFry was born.

Even though he is accepting a sippy cup at mealtimes these days (we still give him a bottle at bedtime), he REFUSES to hold the cup himself. If I set the cup in front of him, he will literally scream and swat it away onto the floor. He will watch it as it falls to the ground, spilling formula everywhere, and then he will turn and see the desperate fury on MamaFish's face and smile, with that one little white tooth poking out, laughing at me.

Apparently, however, he will hold the cup for PapaFish. PapaFish has been christened as the fish bowl's disciplinarian - TheFry definitely takes him more seriously than he does me. I'm glad. I don't want to be the disciplinarian.

Hopefully, TheFry will be drinking from (and holding) his own cup three times a day by his first birthday. We have almost three weeks left. I'm wondering how weaning him off that final bottle will go...