Bye Bye Bottle and Baby Food

As we near closer to the one year mark we are beginning to say good bye to two things that Elsie used a lot of in her first year, the bottle and baby food.

Bottles:
A week before she turned 11 months I realized we really need to get her to consistently drink from a sippy cup.  We introduced the sippy cup to her around 6 months of age but it was only like once or twice a day and she more or less just played with it but didn't really drink out of it and when she did she mostly just drank water, formula she didn't hardly drink at all.  Between the ages of 12-18 months a child should no longer drink from a bottle or need to drink from a bottle so the pressure was on.  I set a time limit that by 12 months we would be done with bottles.  I am not sure if that is realistic for us at this point since that is just over a week away but we have made some definite progress.

So about three weeks ago I started giving her milk out of her sippy cup and trying to be consistent.  When she would wake up she would get a bottle of milk (6-8 oz).  I would try a sippy cup during her breakfast, am snack and lunch.  If she didn't drink much I would give her a bottle before nap, then sippy cup again until her bedtime bottle.  Now a week shy of her first birthday we are only giving her a bottle before bedtime.  I think we have made more progress than I thought we would.  Now comes the transition from formula to whole milk.  We are hoping to start that this week.  I am going to call the pediatrician today to see what the best way to go about this would be.

I am really looking forward to getting rid of the bottles.  It will be nice not to have to worry about washing them since we will probably just throw the sippy cups in the dishwasher.

Baby Food: 
We have been giving Elsie table food for a a few months now but mainly just fruit and veggies and plain ole hamburger and chicken but not like we are now.  We haven't opened a jar of baby food in a couple weeks.  She had her first kids meal from a restaurant the Saturday after thanksgiving.  She had chicken strips and steamed veggies from Texas Roadhouse and last week she even had some cheese pizza.  She LOVES meat and will just gobble up hamburger and chicken and she LOVES veggies (especially broccoli).  We are still struggling with fruit though.  She is just not that interested in them.  She will eat everything else except her fruit.

I have to admit...it was so easy going into the cupboard and grabbing a jar/pouch of food but it is also nice not having to worry about having special food for her as we can find something out that she will eat.  Ever since we discovered she in fact is not allergic to egg I have been pretty lenient in what we have been feeding her...not 3 day wait for us anymore :).  We do still have some pureed food left over, mainly fruit so I can mix that in with some plain yogurt to get rid of it but we are done buying it which is awesome!