staring bottle to cup transitions. need some clarifications

[sfbayarea]

DD is almost one. She's been using straw cup for water for a few months already. when drinking water, she always just takes a few sips and stops and she likes to play with the bottle and play with the water such as squirting it out.

I have tried milk in her straw cup recently. She didn't quite refuse it but stopped after a couple of oz.

Here are a few questions I would like to get some clarification on
1. She's always fed with bottle in my gliding chair. Should I hold her in the chair with the cup, or just put her in the high chair
2. is it better to start with one meal with cup, or just throw the bottles out all together. which is easier?
3. If she stops, should I wait sometime and continue to offer, or should i just wait till next feeding? I don't want her to develop the habit of Grazing. She should just finish her meal/milk at one sitting
4. I am thinking of giving milk in cup first and let her go as much as she can then pour the rest in a bottle. will this approach work gradually?
5. do you see milk consumption dropped significantly after the switching? When I bottle feed, the last couple oz are pretty much "forced" down, since she's no longer that hungry and wants to play/look around and I have to hold her still to continue the feed. With cup, there is not much i can do.

[Mummy23boys]

Hi there,

All your questions are the same as mine! I'll follow this too to see what replies you get! The moderators on this are brilliant! Almost magical! Lol!

Best of luck with it!

[Lolly]

When they get to 1 they don't need as much milk, they need about 14oz of dairy to meet their calcium needs but it doesn't have to be liquid milk - cheese and yoghurt counts. Milk isn't a "feed" now, it's a drink and too much will fill them up.

What we did was to keep the morning and bedtime bottle for a little while and switch to a cup of milk during the day offered at snack times. DD began refusing breakfast just after she turned 1 so we stopped the morning bottle, gave breakfast first (cereal and milk) and then toast and a sippy of milk mid-morning. She didn't drink as much at first but it picked up slowly until she was downing a cup full of milk. We switched her bedtime bottle to a cup when she was 18 months.

I think it's potentially confusing to offer a cup and then give a bottle and if the bottle is the preferred choice they will just hold out for the bottle. When ever you decide to offer milk just take it away however much is drunk when the meal/ snack is over. Babies/ toddlers won't starve themselves and they need to learn to eat to their appetite so when they have had enough and choose to stop then you need to go with it really.

HTH!

Laura

[sfbayarea]

Laura thank you so much for your comments. it's really helpful!