Weaning Baby Off Bottle

Hi,


Did a search and I'm surprised I didn't find any info on this topic...


My daughter is 18-months old and still drinks all her milk from a bottle.


I plan to start weaning her and some tips I read were:


- substitute bottle with a sippy cup (which I plan to do at breakfast when she drinks the least milk).


- other suggestions I read were to dilute the milk with water in the bottle, but put full milk in the cup.


Before I embark on this... I would like some feedback from others who've been through this process.


Baby is so used to having a bottle to settle her at night time - how long can I keep doing this for?


I can't substitute a pacifier so that she can still get "sucking" comfort, because she's never used one - so how do I tackle this?


She drinks milk at breakfast, before her lunch time nap, and then at bedtime, so I thought I could just substitute the sippy cup for the first two feeds and leave the night time one... and then I guess later down the track, I will substitute the sippy cup for one with a straw???


Thanks.

It kind of depends on how determined she is - one of mine did sippy cup and dropped the bottle feed with no problem. I just started with the day time, and offered her the sippie cup - after a couple of days she had the whole thing sorted.


for the night time feed try to move it away from bedtime, ie bring it forward so that she is getting a feed maybe 30 mins before bedtime which will disassociate the two so that the settling thing isnt an issue. If you baby is going down fine for naps without a bottle then it is just a habit. Try to implement a new night time routine step by step over a few days. Dont intro pacifier if you dont have to.


For intro sippy just offer her that instead of the bottle and see what happens - if she really is resisting then let her calm and try again a few mins later. My second child didnt want sippy but would take milk in a cup. I havent heard of this idea of watering down the milk in the bottle - not sure I would bother.


With all these things I think if you are calm and positive then they quickly get the idea.

Thanks for the feedback... hopefully she'll be ok because whenever we've tried to give her milk from anything other than her bottle, she refuses it!

I would try when she is hungriest not when she cares the least. We gave our son a cup when he was the hungriest, ie first thing in the morning at 11 months. We tried sippy cup and for some reason he would not suck. We dropped the bottle feeds one by one- first morning, then afternoon and lastly the bedtime one over 6 weeks. There is always a chance of him swatting/ swiping at the cup and having a big spill but.... it really hasn't happened much - may be a couple of times in the last 4 months. Now he wants to drink himself, its messy when it spills on him and I have to be watchful of him tipping the glass too much but I am happy he is trying to drink directly.

we skipped the sippy cup altogether at about 14 mths, directly to a straw cup, and def. move the bedtime feed up and out of the crib (ie BEFORE you put bb down). Tommy Tippee has a nice range of progressive cups designed to wean off of the bottle/sipper altogether