Milk Pusher

I don’t know how it happened, but I think I got Dom back into a habit that took us a lot of time to break. Getting a bottle in the middle of the night. He of course doesn’t drink a bottle anymore, but he has been waking up either in the middle of the night or at 5:30am asking for “waa waa” which is milk. Uh oh.

I didn’t meant to do it, I swear. When we was on formula, we got to a place where he’d have his bottle after dinner, but when it was bed time, no go. He could have some water, but no milk. Then it took him a while to get used to whole milk. He went weeks with just having a little bit here and there. I made sure he got his needed calcium by making sure he eat cheese, cereal with milk etc. Then one day, he suddenly decided he couldn’t get enough of it. Because he went so long without it, I was over the moon that he had his thirst for it back. So I didn’t discourage him drinking, even when he wanted it during story time before he went to bed. He would drink two sippy cups full while sitting on my lap, no problem. Thus began the “drinking milk right before bed” routine again.

But wait, it gets worse. Dom finally broke through one of his molars, and the others are starting to come in too. He had a rough couple of weeks of having a cold, teething and just feeling not well. When he’d wake up in the middle of the night and cry for “waa waa” I gave it to him because I wanted to comfort him. Hell, if having Mommy jump up and down like a pogo stick would have brought him comfort, I would have slapped on a bra and gone at it. But luckily got me, he just wanted his milk.

And now here we are 3 weeks later, and he is still waking up in the middle of the night about 2-3 times a week asking for it. Shoot. Why did I do this? It wasn’t on purpose. I was just trying to comfort my baby, which was the short term goal. But I didn’t think about the long term in the moment, and now I am faced with having to go through the process of re-learning Dom’s behavior to not expect milk in the middle of the night. This involves a lot of crying and heart break. And Dom’s not going to be too happy about it either.