HELP! How to get my 13 mos to drink his milk again?

Have been trying to wean him off the breasts. Couple weeks ago I offered him formula in his straw cup for the first time before bed. Surprisingly he drank bottomed it up without much fuss. While I was counting my blessings, he started to reject it after a few nights. Now it's become such a battle when he sees the cup before bed. We tried reading him stories to distract him, but this can AT MOST get him drink 2-3oz out of the cup. He just doesn't want it any more. He'd rather lie down and suck his thumb to fall asleep.


He is on Gina Ford. He has his dinner at 6 then the bed time milk at around 8. He can eat his dinner really well which means he won't get any hungry at 8 at all. Unlike the breast, this milk in a straw cup is nothing comforting to put him to sleep, and because he is not hungry, he decided that he doesn't need it. We tried giving him less at dinner to see if he's hungry enough to drink his bed time milk. It doesn't help.


This morning, I tried to give him formula in straw cup before breakfast. Provided that last night he drank only 2oz, I would expect he's hungry enough to drink the milk after 12 hrs of sleep. Still, he rejected it. After half an hour of battle we could only get him drink 2oz.


Can anyone give me some advice??? I feel like a big failure.

oh you poor thing. i can't really offer you any advice, only sympathise with you, as i',m going through something similar with a ninemonth old.....

will be watching this thread for helpful hints!

I have goen through a similar situation in trying to get my daughter to take a bottle before I went to the hospital for surgery. I had to keep offering it to her when she was hungry before I breast fed her to get her to take it. It took a few weeks of persistence but she will take a bottle now, but only when she is really hungry. I also remember trying to get my son to use a sippy cup and it took a long time of many presentations of the cup. It is something new and like any new thing they need to see it a lot before they are comfortable with it.


Nicher - I think the big thing with something new is to not stress about it and turn it into a fight. THis is the same principle as mentioned in threads related to feeding solids recently. I would suggest offering the cup of milk at every meal as you have been doing but don't fight him to drink it. You could try offering it first so he is hungry and let him drink what he needs then offer breakfast or a breast feed as you would normally do. If he drank 2 oz one day he will gradually drink more. Some people also suggest only offering the cup and not any other bottle or breastfeed at that time to encourage him to drink but this is up to you. You could offer him the cup at night and just remove it if he refuses it. Hopefully he will get used to it when the emphasis is taken off it. Also- Have you tried a sippy cup that is similar in sucking action to breastfeeding? This might be easier for him to handle. But whatever you decide to use, stick to one thing and try to encourage it and not make it forced on him. good luck.

Hi Kim, I'm adopting the latter approach - drink from the cup and no more bottle/ breasts. Maybe I shouldn't fight with him any more and just let him be... Really hate to see him struggle with the milk and eventually tire himself out before bed. I don't want him to associate bedtime with so much anxiety (used to be Mommy and baby cuddle time...).


Mine never likes a sippy cup. Bought two for him but he just chews on it. So at the end i gave him straw cup. But now when he sees the straw cup before bed he cries because he knows it's milk time again (I thought every baby likes milk??!!!). Some people said to eliminate the bottle after 1 to avoid them drinking too much milk. Mine is just the opposite. Maybe I should re-introduce the bottle to him to get him drink more. Ha ha!

hi nicher, i think the idea is to eliminate the bottle so you don't need to go through a second weaning from bottle to sippy/straw cup.


but if it is stressing you out so much, and baby is happy with milk from the bottle, maybe you should jsut give him the bottle, specially before bed time.

Hi Kali - nah... no bottle any more. As you said I don't want to go through this weaning phrase again. Better eliminate them altogether.


We did try offering him breast milk and cow's milk in bottle before but he didn't drink that much either. I guess he just isn't interested in drinking any form of fluid that is not from the breasts haha! So I may as well cut out the bottle.

Thanks Joshmomm for your reassurance. I'll try not to force him tonight and see how it goes. It's up to a point that when he sees the cup he cries so it's challenging to even get him take the first sip. Hate to turn this into a battle.


Another strange thing is despite he's drinking this little milk before bed, he still manages to sleep through the night without waking up (fingers crossed). Maybe you are right I'm bit over-worried :)

nicher,


my son had a bottle almost right from the start but i absolutely had no plans for him to continue with it beyond the age of one. so once we did solids, i introduced the sippy cup for water and when he was 11 months old, i started adding cow's milk to his formula in a straw cup, he would drink some and then i would give him more via a bottle. when he hit one, i decided it was bye bye bottles and formula for good so he would have whatever he had in the straw cup. even if he drank just one or 2 oz (by then, he was only drinking 2 milk feeds, morning and bedtime), i would not try to top up or cajole him into drinking anymore. for those days (all in all probably a couple of weeks), i just made sure he was getting lots of other dairy products in the form of cheese, yoghurt and made lots of cheese sauces for his food.


and one day, he just drank everything from his cup - i kid you not. now at 20 months, the first thing he does every morning when he's still sitting in his cot is slurp down about 200ml (almost 7oz) of cold cow's milk from his straw cup before he does anything else and he will have one more cup before bedtime.


i'm not sure if it'll work out the same way for you but take heart, it does take time to get them used to new experiences and tastes, don't feel like a failure! most important is not to sweat about it. it is still important for a child above 1 to have milk but it's not the only food that the child has, if he's eating well, don't feel compelled to ensure he finishes the last drop in his cup and don't fret that not drinking that cup of bedtime milk is going to cause night wakings, if he had a good dinner at 6pm, i really don't think that will happen.


perhaps your child needs time to take more milk. one suggestion i can make is offer some milk (instead of water) with his dinner and then offer him abit more milk just before bed. that way, your child won't be put off with having an entire cup of milk to finish before bedtime!


HTH, good luck!

i have the same problem with gettig my 14.5 month daughter to drink milk out of a straw cup. i guess i have to persevere as the discussion shows. Can anyone recommend a good straw cup and sippy cup to wean her off the bottle? so far the combi straw cup is the one she'll drink water from but it leaks. she just bites the avent sippy cup so i stopped using it long time ago.