Getting my baby off the bottle

Any tips from parents who have been there? How did you get your baby off a bottle and onto a sippy cup?


My 16mth old drinks any other drink from a sippy cup but refuses to drink her milk from it!

doing it sooner than later is better, so getting it started now is good.


the easiest is to simply eliminate the bottles completely. AT 16 months, your daughter only needs about 400 mls a day, and if she doesn't take it for a few days while she gets used to the idea of no bottles, it won't be so detrimental to her health.


One mom on here did the "bottle" fairy, where the daughter put all the bottles away and (completely hidden) and then a present was in her place.


Saw on one nanny show, the "exchange" of bottles - for a really cool sippy cup. (what kind do you have? My daughter 13 months LOVES her playtex sport cup with the straw - not a sippy cup but a regular straw cup. She chugs down her morning milk in that very very quickly.)


the fastest is just eliminating and eventually understanding that your daughter will eventually drink when she is hungry and thirsty.

saralee,


i posted a similar question awhile ago.

http://singapore.asiaxpat.com/forums/momsdads/threads/97456.asp

you can refer to the above link for advice.


at this point, my 12 month old takes his morning milk, about 130-150ml from a straw cup and about 90ml in his cereal. then he has a bottle of about 180ml (we are struggling to have him drink that) before bedtime.


it took ALOT of work to get him to drink his morning milk from the cup. and there are still some mornings when he just refuses but most days he is fine. all i say is if you want to cut out the bottle, when you do give her the cup, do not let her see the bottle, do not let her think the bottle is still available. in the beginning, there might be days when she refuses to drink. in my case, i refused to budge and regress to the bottle again so i just left it at that. i just added more milk into his cereal, made more milk-based dishes, gave yoghurt, cheeses to make up for the milk during this period.


just my experience, it's not easy and maybe you might find that too much too harsh because believe me, there were days when i just wanted to cave in and give the bottle again!


good luck, we are now working on the bedtime milk. :)

We had a similar issue, and a friend did as well.


I stopped BF at 13 months and baby had never really had a bottle (maybe 10 total attempts of expressed milk in a bottle), he didn't take well to any sippy cup or straw cups.


But after we stopped, and we gave him a cup with a straw with milk, he drank a very small amount every day. But we were checking, and he had wet nappies, and we were sure to give him 'wet' food and lots of yogurt and cheese.


I was concerned he was not getting enough, but the Dr gave me great advice - he CAN drink, so he WILL drink when he needs to. And he was right. Doctor also told me that many bottle fed babies drink more than they need anyway.


After about 2 weeks, he started picking up the cup himself and drinking. He is a superstar drinker now, drinking 4 cups a day. Interestingly, his yogurt intake reduced a lot when the milk intake went up - his choice.


A friend also BreastFed and then changed to bottles. at 14 months baby was drinking her milk from bottle, but water from a straw cup.


After trying gently, she just did cold turkey - threw away the bottles and gave milk in the straw cup. She had just under two weeks of crying and stress, but after that - perfect straw cup drinker.


I totally agree with HKCC above - doing it sooner is less pain than doing it later when they can talk, argue and rationalise with you about why they prefer the bottle.


We use the Munchkins cup with a straw and the Playtex one. They both say 2 years and up, but you can ignore that :)

saralee, by the time my son was around 15-16 mos old, he could drink out of regular tumblers, straw cups, etc. So, I decided enough was enough and just threw out those bottles. We offered him milk in a glass tumbler with an ordinary straw (just so that he could feel more like an 'adult'). The first morning he was a little reluctant but he gave in and never asked for the bottle afterwards.

Thanks for all your replies! Going cold turkey sounds the perfect formula for my fiesty girl.

Ahh, hate to confess it, but I remember having a bottle as a child and how nice that warm milk seemed! If I was old enough to remember it . . . gee, I must have been pretty old! Is it really such a big deal to get them off of the bottle, as long as they're not taking it to bed? I don't know, because I only BF mine. My pediatrician, who is a friend of mine, told me a trick he recommends for bottles and dummies both. He says, you wait until the child is old enough to understand the concepts of "bye bye" and "all gone." Then, you gradually eliminate bottles one at a time in the house, until there is only one. You search for bottles with the child, opening cabinets, etc, so the child knows and is quite sure there is only one left. Then, . . . one day the one remaining bottle or dummy has a big accident -- very accidental, very visible, so there is no doubt that it really is "all gone." He used an example, that it might be accidentally run over by a car or something. Maybe it could get cracked? I'm not quite sure how you would stage this, and like I said I never had to try it myself. But it seems a more understandable way for the child to experience the loss than just a complete disappearance?

I did that, my son bit through his teat one day leaving a gaping hole so I said "Oh no look, it's broken and we don't have anymore, what are we going to do?" He took it really well and just kept saying "The bottle's broken" The very same day we went shopping for a big boys cup together, he took to it straight away and we haven't looked back :-)