The Bottle, Milk, Teeth Dilemma

Although I haven't reflected on it lately, I have made absolutely no progress and really just several truly halfhearted attempts in getting Ivan off the bottle.

Actually I think it has gotten worse than it was last summer. I think he now asks for his bottle and is more attached to it than he was before.

He still needs the meme (milk) to wake up in the morning and continues sucking on the bottle long after he's done drinking the milk, which by mnow he actually chugs down in a second.

I try to remove the bottle telling him it will give a bubu to his teeth, but he absolutely protests.

I'm not sure what happens during the day in daycare. But when he's at home, I know my parents give him the bottle rather willingly (since they believe in setting limits much less than we do), and he needs the bottle to go down for a nap.

In the evening, the same cycle repeats itself. After bath, during which he halfhazardly brushes his teeth because he insist on doing it himself and doesn't allow us to help him, he gets his milk. He gets cranky and inconsolable if he doesn't get it. He drinks it in a seco but continues sucking on the bottle and won't let me remove it. So I give in and just plop him to bed with it. Or if he falls asleep with me, then I just let him suck on it until he's asleep and I transfer him to be.

And every day, I continue silently freaking out that he'll end up with cavity pocked, rotten black teeth by the age of 4.

It didn't help when a few month back I went to see my dentist, the one I've been going to for years, I brought up this issue with my hygenist. It's hard to chitchat while someone is trying to clean your mouth but I tried. I was also a captive audience. The woman, who has two teenage kids, couldn't understand that we couldn't brush Ivan's teeth. Her kids apparently had no problem with her taking control over their mouths to brush their teeth like Ivan who tends to be rather propriatery about his mouth. She then continued to monologue by saying that she actually considers not brushing a todders's teeth and not removing the bottle to be child abuse.

I was livid and horrified, and unfortunately, unable to say anything as she saw started polishing my teeth.

Nedless to say, this hasn't really helped my bottle/milk/teeth anxiety I've been harboring for a year now.