Help...my 12 month old won't hold his bottle

[Nick's Mum]

I need some help and advise. My 12 month old DS is very textbook in all ways except that he refuses to hold his own bottle and he does not really like self-feeding. Otherwise, he is very well behaved and sits in the highchair for every meal. Just to be clear, he has never ever held his bottle and I have tried teaching him, praising him, lighter bottles, thinner bottles. For self-feeding, if he likes the food (bread or biscuits), so he'll hold it to take 1 bite and then he'll drop it. If it's veggies or anything else, he won't even touch it! He's just so lazy! I don't know how to get him more independent and hence, I have no clue what to do. I now simply hold and tilt the cup to his mouth and he sips. He loves to be spoon-fed or bottle-fed and he has never ever fought with me to gain control. I feel like I must have done something horribly wrong coz my baby is the only child I know who still can't hold his own bottle!

[woopster]

Does he eat with you or do you have separate meal times from him? 

[Nick's Mum]

We have separate mealtimes coz I can't manage spoon-feeding him plus eating at the same time. But he sits with us when we have our meals and he always has a snack too.

[* Paula *]

I am going to pop this over to Eating for Toddlers, as I am sure that you will get a lot more response from there.

Just to let you know, my DS who is now 2 never held his own bottle - he would put his hands on it, and then just let go - or sometimes hold it for a few minutes and then let go.  We never let this worry us, and always used bottle feedings as our cuddle time and mummy or daddy would give him the bottle.  He can now drink from his own sippy cup without any problems, all we did was leave his sippy lying around with a bit of water in for him to play with and then eventually he got the hang of it.

With regards to self feeding - again I would not worry too much about it.  At 12 months we were still feeding our DS - when it came to meal times we would give him a small bowl with his own spoon and a little food in it just to mess around with while we fed him.  From there he learnt to self feed himself, and has been independant since he was about 16 months old.

HTH's

Paula

[Nick's Mum]

Thanks for letting me know that m DS is not the only child in the world who won't hold his bottle! However, he has never liked his sippy cup, so I thought of just letting him start sipping from a normal cup. But of course, since he won't hold anything, I would still need to hold it! Do you know anyone who sucessfully managed to go straight to a normal cup and how to get the baby to hold that?

[* Paula *]

My DS never really liked the sippy either, but eventually he just go the hang of it.

Have you thought about trying a straw in a cup or a straw sippy cup - A lot of lo's find this fun, and end up drinking better from this than a normal sippy.  Just a thought.

[*Mona*]

hi

my dd almost never wants to hold her bottle.
she's not very fond of her sippy too but loves her straw cup instead.

m

[Nick's Mum]

Thanks for the straw suggestion...can I find out what happened the 1st few times when you offered the straw in a cup? I tried that but he seems to not know how to suck...basically only chewed it. Will the child actually know how to suck from a straw?

[*Mona*]

well, I showed dd how to drink from her straw cup drinking from it myself a few times and showing her how she's supposed to 'suck' the fluid by sucking air in, hehe. it was quite funny actually.

m

[elmarie]

You not alone.  My dd of nearly 16m refuses to hold her bottle as well-she has 1 when she wakes and 1 at bedtime.   She will drink on her own from her sippy-no problem.  We are trying to switch the milk from bottle to sippy but not successful yet.  ...

[Colin Macs Mom]

Colin never, ever held his own bottle either. He did with a sippy, but never the bottle    He also would only drink from a straw cup as well, he didn't take a regular sippy until he was much older.

[kristin378]

wow.  this is comforting to read.  my son just turned 1 yr last week.  he hasn't ever held his own bottle and at around 10.5 months, we wanted to switch to sippy cups.  however, he wouldn't get the hang of those either.  so...  as a last resort i bought a cheapy little straw sippy cup and he loves them.  he drinks everything out of them now except for his bedtime milk which is still given in a bottle (which i hold).

he also has very little interest in feeding himself, or any sort of real food.  he likes the runny mushy stage 2 baby food.  he won't eat any of the stage 3 food and i can get him to only eat a bite or two of the food that his daddy and i eat at meals.  i hate spoon feeding him and feel like he should be starting to eat "real" foods and do it by himself but he seems to have no interest at all.

[Nick's Mum]

I have a similar problem with my LO. He has never ever been interested much in food. He is quite greedy and insists on trying some of my food or on having his biscuits when he sees them. But when it comes to his own food, he loses interest fast (even if he sits with us while we eat) and I need to turn the TV on (terrible terrible). He can chew ok but if I feed him non-pureed food for a proper meal, he gets lazy after 2 bites and refuses to chew. If I place finger foods in front of him, unless it's biscuits or bread, he won't even place it near his mouth! I'm also very sick and tired of spoon feeding and bottle holding!