Hi
my dd (who turned 4 on the 14th March) is currently obsessed with pretending to be a baby. Happily, she is now (at last) toilet trained and hasn't regressed in that direction, except she still insists that I read her a story in the toilet everytime she does a 'no 2'. She actually says: 'I will hold onto my pooh until you read me a story in the toilet!' And makes strenuous, obvious efforts to retain her faeces if I say, 'no, you don't need a story to do a pooh'. She even says 'I will never do pooh again until you read me a story in the toilet!'. I hold out, she holds out....in the end I feel so sorry for her that I agree to read the story while she poohs. Thankfully, she only poohs once a day, always straight after her tea, so there's no anxiety about kindy (she's just started).
Then, the other day, she spied a cheap baby bottle in the supermarket and asked me to buy it, 'so I can feed Lucy and Annabel' (her baby dolls). I thought: what's the harm, I'll just put some water in it and she can play mummmies....as soon as we get home, she wants milk in the bottle. To drink. Herself. I hesitated, then caved in (I'm a single mum and a bit tired).
DD never had a bottle as an infant or toddler. She was breastfed until 18 months, then moved on to a sippy-cup. I found myself in the curious position of having to explain to a 4 y/o how babies get milk out of bottles (I told her you have to tip the bottle right up, and suck on the rubber teat, etc). So now she's always happily either chewing on the rubber teat, or supping milk, from this bloody baby bottle. She never even had a dummy before! She's even said, 'Mummy, the reason why I didn't like the bottle when I was little was because I didn't like the rubberry taste...but now I LOVE it!'
Should I promptly stop this? She's still going to kindy without the bottle. She went to stay with ex-dp without the bottle this evening. But with me, she wants to go to sleep like this:
a. me in bed
b. 'cuddle arm' (my arm over her torso)
c. baby bottle with milk in it for her suck on whenever she feels like it.
I am wondering if the baby thing isn't something to do with my best friend, who has three kids under four (the youngest was born just three weeks ago). DD sees my best friend's middle child (about 19 months) with a bottle sometimes....also DD is anxious that I will have another baby and 'will never cuddle her again' (not likely, btw).
Should I go along with all of this, or take a stand?