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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think my daughter is taking me for a mug?

197 replies

WhatstheT · 25/02/2016 10:28

I could post this in parenting... but I'd barely get a reply.

I'm really struggling with my daughter and her not being independent around me.

I work full time and my daughter has been in nursery since 9 months old. She's at nursery 8am til 1pm then my partner picks her up. Since the day she started nursery she has refused a bottle and milk, she would only have water in a sippy cup. At around the same time I started offering her a sippy cup at home with meals, and she wouldn't touch them. She's now 1 years old and I've persisted with this to no avail. We have about 8 different types of cup. She spent one week at about 11 months old proudly sipping water from them at mealtimes, but then stopped again. She just picks them up and throws them, or tips them upside down and pours all the water or milk out.

On saturday she had a morning bottle, then at 10am she wanted a drink again, so I put some milk in one sippy cup, water in another, offered both to a massive shake of the head. I left it until 3pm with constant crying and whinging for a drink. Everytime she asked I placed the sippy cup infront of her, and that would make her worse. I also put a sippy cup in her pram on the table at the front when we go out. Eventually at teatime I ended up having to give her a bottle before bed, she was screaming to the point of gagging. She also won't have a bottle with large or variflow teats now... only slow flowing number ones.... I just don't get it.

I've spoken to nursery about it and she takes a sippy cup without a fuss, picks it up and drinks it. (we have the same one as nursery too)

I know persistence is the way forward, but she will go all day not touching any liquid until I put it in a bottle. I also don't understand her one week of using any sippy cup I gave her and just giving up.

She is the same with feeding too. Feeds herself with a spoon at nursery, but at home I have to put the food on a spoon and pass it to her (or she hand feeds if it isn't a runny food) If I put the spoon in the bowl and leave it for her, she screams and throws it on the floor.

I know she's playing with me, because I know all the things I'm encouraging she can do!. It's becoming daft that she can't drink at home without leaning back or lying down with her bottle (I won't cradle her with one anymore) I'm stuck for what to do! There's plenty of other things she only does with me too (screaming when I open a door or looking like I'm leaving, cries when I enter a room, I'm her personal climbing frame...etc. all separation stuff)

OP posts:

Alisvolatpropiis · 25/02/2016 14:00

*a go.

ComeonSummer1 · 25/02/2016 14:01

And this thread has got nasty I agree.

bakeoffcake · 25/02/2016 14:02

Just give her a bottle and the problems will be solved.

And get used to her behaving differently in different environments because at school she will problably be an angel all day and as soon as she sees you, she'll have a complete meltdown.

Crazypetlady · 25/02/2016 14:04

She shouldn't be ashamed of wanting the baby to stop the bottle but do think with holding fluids is very worrying.

However we all do things in desperation and I think you just need to chill o.p she will do it in her own time

ShesGotLionsInHerHeart · 25/02/2016 14:10

Fools I did exactly the same. No drama.

FoolsAndJesters · 25/02/2016 14:12

There is nothing wrong with disagreeing with the OP or with other posters but the nasty comments on this thread are a bit much. If I did it all again I'd still take my kids bottles off them when they were one. They drank out of cups instead and I felt they were better at falling asleep on their own rather then relying on a bottle. I wouldn't dream of saying my way is right for everyone but it's was right for me and my kids.

SovietKitsch · 25/02/2016 14:22

OP I'd just let her have the bottle til she's ready to give it up - and cradle her to give it to her if that's what she wants. She obviously still needs this from her behaviour and she treats you differently because only you are her mum. Probably once you let her have the bottle back she'll be happier to do a mixture of bottle and cup until she's a little older. I don't see how it matters unless you're giving her juice/squash in a bottle which would be bad for her teeth.

My DD isn't a lot older than yours, been at nursery since a similar age, feeds herself, will take a cup etc but was always a bottle refuser. I've BF her, and she goes all day quite happily without a feed, but once I'm back, she gets upset til I feed her, and days off she'll ask for a feed during the day. Sounds like your DD feels a similar way with the bottle and you - she can be "grown up" at nursery, but still wants you to baby her.

HumphreyCobblers · 25/02/2016 14:54

no one made me police the thread! I was expressing my opinion that the OP had some reason to be annoyed by the sanctimonious tone of some of the posts.

I have seen people advised to go out and leave their baby with someone else many times, if they want to move from breast to bottle. The OP did not withhold fluids ffs, she offered the little one a drink from a cup, which is used quite happily in another setting.

Saying 'shame on you' about someone's parenting efforts is as goady as fuck.

HumphreyCobblers · 25/02/2016 14:55

Also, this might be irrelevant but my nearly three year old still has a bottle, so not really showing I have an axe to grind as it were.

yomellamoHelly · 25/02/2016 14:59

What about a beaker with a straw and valve. Designed to be drank sitting upright but still needs to be sucked on to get the contents out? (Not read thread so apologies if already suggested / discussed)

paxillin · 25/02/2016 15:00

OP's deleted comments were hugely sexist, ageist and downright nasty, HumphreyCobblers. Insulting posters as witches or hags and throw in some horrible and fucking as describers and in case one of us hadn't got she meant women only, she pointed that one out, too. It sounded like a chauvinist rant by (male) drunk on a street corner.

HumphreyCobblers · 25/02/2016 15:01

I am sorry, I didn't see that. Obviously that was quite out of order. But her earlier posts were none of those things, which was what I was responding to.

eatsleephockeyrepeat · 25/02/2016 15:02

I am ASTOUNDED - check your bad selves all of you with your sneering "why don't you just comfort your baby?" with not-so-subtle undertones of "I'd cuddle my baby because I'm a BETTER MOTHER THAN YOU"; if you can't see that's what you've been saying then you are probably exactly what the OP wrote in her now deleted posts. And if you did see how you'd come across, well you were gunning for a fight and it looks like you got one so stop your sanctimonious whining.

Disclaimer: obviously not everyone was this heinous. But most were. "Just give her the bottle", give me strength. At least offer some practical advice then say "but if it were me I'd just let her whinge on her back with a bottle". But I suppose this is AIBU.

Anyway OP if you're still out there, I have some practical advice for you. Try giving your little girl all her cups/beakers etc. in the bath. My little boy plays with his in the bath - plays filling them up and drinking the water (terrible mother - the hygiene!) - so when he sees them in the day it's like a treat, playing with his watery toy! Might encourage using them at home at any rate. Worth a try?

Oh and OP, seeing the place your child is trying to get to and asking for tips and advice to gently help them get there? GREAT PARENTING IMO.

PosieReturningParker · 25/02/2016 15:11

The OP had two vile posts deleted on page one, to be honest on the basis of those posts I'd say a couple of sanctimonious response are mild and fair.

PrivatePike · 25/02/2016 15:11

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

DonkeyOaty · 25/02/2016 15:12

AHEM

eatsleephockeyrepeat · 25/02/2016 15:14

I think a couple of deletion-worthy messages were probably fair the way this lady was set-upon!

Cutecat78 · 25/02/2016 15:18

Good old MN.

The supportive parenting website

eatsleephockeyrepeat · 25/02/2016 15:20

Let this be a lesson to us all; never post anything in AIBU "for traffic".

HumphreyCobblers · 25/02/2016 15:20

no, I specifically meant the ones before the deletions. There was a real tone of 'how could you be so cruel to your child' in the replies. I would have reacted badly to that, probably by crying rather than being abusive, but it would have cut me to the core. I was just trying to make that point.

Obviously her responses were deleted and I understand they were terrible. But some of the initial response to her post (which began with 'I am struggling') were pretty vile. I thought it was worth mentioning.

eatsleephockeyrepeat · 25/02/2016 15:32

Humphrey I couldn't be held responsible for what would come out of my mouth if someone suggested I wasn't "loving by baby right" - and with a young baby I'm very sensitive to the suggestion. So I can see where OP was coming from if she turned nasty.

eatsleephockeyrepeat · 25/02/2016 15:34

*rather than "sensitive to the suggestion" read "sensitive to the insinuation".

splendide · 25/02/2016 15:43

They do behave differently with their parents. I have a fairly extreme version of this - my son is 16 months and walks at nursery but not at home!

timelytess · 25/02/2016 15:49

Dear OP. Your child is a baby. Too small to be independent. Too small to have manipulative plans to keep you in thrall. Please imagine yourself her size, and with her limited experience of the world, and try to see things from her point of view.

BoffinMum · 25/02/2016 15:58

Haven't RTFT but if there is vitriol then I don't want to.

All behaviour is expression, even with tinies. She wants her mummy. So give her mummy. This apparently means having nice drinks from a slow-flowing bottle on mummy's cuddly lap. Why would anyone not want that?

Do this for a little while, a few weeks maybe, and then try very gently starting again to get her to do the things you would like her to do, perhaps letting her have a dolls' plastic tea set and playing with it together and both having some drinks out of that. Then she could perhaps choose a colourful cup from a toy shop and perhaps use that for playful drinking as well, until you have progressed towards her having a proper cup whenever you want her to.

If you take your time she will give in eventually and won't even notice she is doing it.

FWIW my brother walked around all day with a nappy on and a bottle of squash hanging out of his mouth until he was about 3. He is now 44 and can drink completely normally.

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