So now we're doing 'don't offer, try to refuse' with morning bottle. Definitely best if we just go straight downstairs, then she is quite often distracted by playing or breakfast and forgets to ask. Once she's got the idea of a bottle in her head she is quite tenacious. This morning I genuinely couldn't find the bottle (she was in bad shape yest evening, overtired, had a seizure, too tired to eat tea, separation anxiety and I had to talk to clients on the phone, and was really upset and begging for a bottle), and Audrey searched high and low til she found it under the couch!
What she wants to do is cuddle up on my lap with the bottle, but then she is so so so upset when it's finished. Real tears and takes ages to recover. But if she sits and has a cuddle with Stan or DH, she is a bit upset but not bad. Or if she sits up on the kitchen counter so she's near me while I prepare people's breakfasts, that's OK too. So that's what we're trying to do. I feel a bit bad, pushing her away like that, but feel like it's the right thing to do to avoid the terrible upset over the finished bottle. Then once the bottle is done with we have cuddles.