Page 134 - The Intentional Parent

GIVING UP THE BOTTLE
Do you have any suggestions on how we can get our three-and- a-half-year-old son to give up the bottle? It looks like it is permanently attached to his face.
The bottle has become a comfort object to your son, just like a favorite smelly blanket or stuffed animal. He associates the bottle with everything that has kept him safe and warm throughout his short life. Getting him to give it up is like asking him to give up a piece of what he finds comfortable and secure in this world. But life does go on, and we all must move on to to bigger and better things. The best way I have found to encourage a child to give up the bottle is to give him permission to use it only in a very restricted area of the house, like one particular chair at the kitchen table. Cutting down on his mobility with the bottle will make his life a bit more tedious. The great majority of kids choose the freedom to move around over the security provided by the bottle. You might also try offering only water in the bottle, but more tempting things, like juice, in a cup.
PICKY EATING
My four-year-old hates to eat. Aside from one or two special foods, we can't get him to touch a thing. Is there any way we can get him to eat a wider variety of foods?
Kids can have very peculiar taste preferences. They can run through periods where all they will eat is this food or that for days, weeks, or months on end. One five-year-old child I know went from a peanut-butter-and-jelly phase directly to a shrimp cocktail phase. ("That was quite an expensive phase," his mother
The Intentional Parent by Peter J. Favaro, Ph.D. 134