Tips for getting LO to drink milk from a cup?

[LovelyLilyandJack]

My 15 month old has mostly only one bottle of milk a day (at bedtime), but ideally I'd offer a cup of milk with breakfast as well.  If I offer a bottle on waking he refuses breakfast for about 1.5hrs and it gets very late in the day - no good if we're going out or heading to nursery.  If I offer it after breakfast he refuses it,  so ideally he'd move to cups at some point and have milk as a snack or a drink with breakfast. At some point in the next few months I guess I'll switch his bedtime bottle to a cup as well.

The only thing is, he refuses milk from a cup.  Water, yes, but he just won't entertain milk from anything but a bottle. To get him onto a bottle in the first place we had to offer it before every single feed for 2 weeks.  It was a right faff.  Do I have to do the same again, but with cups? I'm not so worried about the morning milk cos he loves cheese and yoghurt but we'll have to tackle bedtime at some point.  I never had to wean from a bottle with my daughter cos she suddenly refused milk from anything at all at 13 months, so I'm clueless about this.  Any tips?

[goldmom]

DD loves to blow bubbles in her cup that has a straw attached, sometimes she'll actually drink the milk from the cup too. She doesn't drink a ton of milk at a time though.

[lolsyb1982]

Straw cup worked best for us too at the beginning, now she'll drink out of anything 

[scruffymax]

DD took ages - I would even say months! I think what eventually got her drinking milk from a soppy cup was calling it a cup of tea - she would have hers (warm milk) while I had a cup of tea. I think I tried giving it to her cold  warm, diluted with water, and at different times of the day. Try not to stress too much - just keep offering it and surely he'll take it eventually. Re the bedtime bottle - one night when dd was around 18 months she didn't ask for it so we didn't give it. Subsequent nights if she asked we just redirected her (book time now) and it was as easy as that. It's not the end of the world if he still has a bedtime bottle, so long as you brush his teeth after he drinks it.

[Miraclelim]

Llaj, I totally understand. My dd too won't drink from cup n recently refused bedtime milk n even morning milk is a struggle. U said ur dd stopped wanting milk at 13mth, how do u get enough calcium in her???

[creations]

Straw worked great here too. Mine switched to a sippy cup for just a little milk when I stopped the BT bottle (12 months) but I needed him to have one decent milk drink per day so tried over a couple of weeks with a straw for the morning milk. First I split the teet on the bottle and sat him up right for it then tried every few days to switch to the straw (I just used a disposable straw in the bottle initially, that way if he refused I just took the straw out and put the top back on the bottle so I didn't have a screaming LO on my hands!).
The tea idea pp mentioned is a great idea. I poured my tea/coffee into a sippy cup and showed DS how we both had the 'same' cups, he got a real kick out of that. I only did it a couple of times.

Kids seems to love those individual cartons of milk with the little straw attached too. They seem to think they are getting something really special when it's just milk

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Thanks everyone - some great ideas there.  I think we have a straw cup somewhere,  or I'll try the disposable straws.  Thanks.

Miraclelim, I'm not sure lily does get enough calcium tbh  She has a yoghurt every day and that's about it.  Occasionally we'll blend a banana and milk for a snack but she doesn't really like cheese and doesn't like sweets so she won't take supplements either.  I'm thinking of telling her she has to choose between a chunk of cheese a day or a supplement but I never make her eat anything,  it's all up to her what she eats out of what's offered to her, so persuading her to eat something goes against the grain a bit for me.  So we haven't done it yet....

[creations]

calcium rich foods:
http://www.iofbonehealth.org/calcium-rich-foods
you can make fish paste for sandwiches out of canned sardines for instance. Mine loves sprats (whitebait) little fish tossed in flour then fried, the bones are tiny and become crunchy so not at all like 'boney' fish.  He'll eat 3-6 in one go.
Ground almonds instead of flour for pancakes or in other recipes make it higher in calcium too. Almond and apricot muffins for instance as apricots are also a good source of calcium.

or I'll try the disposable straws

If you do, see if you can get a pack of different colours, rinse them out and pop them in the craft box for making all sorts of crafty things