Believe it or not...

Palmer is FINALLY taking a cup! As many of you know we have been struggling with Palmer for about 6 months to take a bottle. She's gotten so old now, that we decided to just work on the cup instead. One less transition. For months she would only take juice from a bottle or cup, and not on a regular basis. She would purposefully gag when there was breastmilk or formula in the cup. There are several reasons we want her on a cup. She'll be one soon and needs to be able to transition to whole milk, we can keep up better with her calorie intake if we could tell how many ounces she's taking, and she's starting preschool in August (can you believe it?) and I don't want to have to come up during the day to feed her.

We have tried every bottle and sippy cup out there. Strangely enough, she only likes the Toss and Take hard plastic cups. I think it's because there is no valve, but not really sure. It's been a long slow process and she's not 100% with it, but is not refusing it and screaming when it's presented to her. She likes to do it by herself. She holds it like a big girl. I can't believe she's almost 10 months old!

I have to confess my secret to getting her to take it. This may not be the right thing to do, but it worked for her. As I said she would drink juice from the cup, but gagged with formula. So I came up the idea of mixing the formula with juice. I know she doesn't need all the extra sugar, but the extra calories are good. We're slowly weaning down from the juice. Everyday, I put one ounce less juice and one ounce extra water in it. She doesn't seem to notice the slow change. When she first tasted it, she kinda looked confused. It tasted sweet likes she likes it, but had another taste to it. She still doesn't drink all 6 ounces at one time, but is getting better and better. She is still nursed in the morning and at night, but gets formula during the day. I love feeding her, but it's nice that other people can feed her and that she can feed herself. I know this was kind of a strange way to get her to take the cup, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

I'm so excited that she's finally going good with a cup. Here's a picture of her drinking her apple julius (that's what I call her apple juice formula concoction) laying on the boppy.