Hi there! So glad to have this forum. I read many posts looking for answers to my problem and didn't see anything so I thought I'd go ahead and post. My son transitioned from formula/bottles at 12 months to cow's milk/bottles with no problem. It took a few weeks of gradually stepping down the amount of formula and within 4-5 weeks he was taking all milk bottles. Yay. The doc advised us to wean him off the bottle and onto a sippy cup, and he started to want fewer and fewer milk bottles anyway. He had been taking water from a sippy cup with no problems for months. So I offered him milk in the sippy cup that typically has water in it and we went off the rails.
Even though I tell him everything before I give it to him, when he got milk instead of water for the first time he seemed absolutely stunned (or betrayed). He has been throwing it on the floor ever since and will not take milk in any way shape or form. I have tried chocolate syrup, strawberry syrup, blending it with strawberries (he loves strawberries), mixing it with fruit yogurt smoothies, warming it, and even giving it to him with a spoon. He won't have it. A couple of times I tried switching the sippy cups around and giving him milk or one of the above concoctions in his normal water sippy cup (which is blue/red), and putting water in a different one (blue/orange) and he would drink neither - to the point of dehydration. That's when I realized, this may not be about the milk, but he also has an aversion to any new sippy cup. All he wants is water from the same blue/red cup he's always had it from. I tried putting the milk in the blue/orange cup and tethering it to his highchair so it was always present even if he didn't drink it. That didn't seem to go anywhere. So this last week I have only given him water from his normal cup and given him a break from trying the milk. The doc said yogurt is a fine substitute (same amount of fat/calcium as milk) so we have been giving him yogurt for a few weeks now, as well as cheese. I have tried other types of sippy cups for his water, trying to break his fixation with this one particular sippy cup without success - until yesterday. He drank water from a new sippy cup (same colors though, blue/red) and without handles. He didn't take a lot, but when he did I went bananas and really made a big deal about it. At the same time, I put yogurt smoothie in his old blue/red cup and he took a couple of sips but nothing substantial. Again I went crazy with praise. I don't mind giving him yogurt, but sometimes I think he gets tired of it at every meal and I have to feed it to him unlike a sippy cup of milk that he can drink himself.
So my questions are, where did I go wrong so I know not to do it again? Have I just totally confused the poor kid? Should I just give up on trying milk altogether or is there something I should do to try and reintroduce it to him? I understand some kids just don't like milk, and I'm okay with that, but I would hate for him to grow up and not drink milk because I did something to cause the aversion instead of him just not liking the taste. Thanks for any help or advice! ~Lauren
p.s. Though I've always thought he was an "angel" baby, so easy with eating, sleeping, etc, sometimes he is not fond of change. It takes him a while before he will let you read through a new book or he plays with new toys. Maybe milk in the sippy cup is the same thing???
