Bottle weaning and bedtime bottle - where to start?

[ameliebob]

Hi everyone! I'm not sure if I'm on the right thread but I'll give it a try.

My DS is nearly 10.5 mo and I'm pregnant with baby #2 arriving soon! He should be 13 mo by then. I'm starting to think about weaning him off the bottle to sippy cups for his formula intake. I know that babies usually starts cow milk around 1 yo and I'm hoping that he will be able to drink by himself by then.

He actually holds his bottle alone pretty well but he won't lift it up enough to finish it so he has to be in our arms to drink. My high hair won't recline low enough so he sucks on air instead of milk. 
So should I buy transition sippy? He already has one for water and it goes well. I'm starting to think to go with regular ones instead as he already drinks without handles. Do I change it cold turkey for every bottles or one bottle at a time? Is he too young to start?

he has a 9 oz bottle at WU and BT, and a 5 oz morning snack. His solid food intake varies a lot. Some days he wants to be spoon fed and others he refuses the spoon and wants to eat by himself. He is also very picky. We started around 2 weeks ago to offer him food from our plates but he's still struggling with all types of meat. (He never liked it, even in purrees)

I'm also wondering about the BT bottle.
When do you give up on it? Should I offer it sooner instead of just before bed? Our routine now is dinner, bath, calm playtime, story, bottle, bed. Sometimes the play comes before bath (it depends on how dirty he is after dinner )

I'm a first time mom and wondering about a lot of things lol sorry for the questions that may seem stupid 

[Lolly]

[quote author=ameliebob link=topic=280288.msg3096156#msg3096156 date=1448715937
I'm a first time mom and wondering about a lot of things lol sorry for the questions that may seem stupid 
[/quote]

No such thing as a stupid question around here

I would keep the morning and bedtime bottle for now and try offering his day milk in a sip cup. They don't tend to take much from cups at first, so you may need to offer it again in the afternoon or with a solid snack. I would try the cup he is familiar with first, some babies prefer different cups for milk and water, mine just used the Tommee Tippee free flow first cup for both.

My two dropped their bedtime milk at different times, there is no right or wrong time to do so, the main thing to watch out for is that you clean teeth after milk before sleep. You can start that now if he has some teeth. My son dropped his bedtime bottle at about 2.5, he loved his bottles and we never managed to swap it to a cup. With DD, we swapped that bottle to a cup at about 18 months and after a few weeks she stopped wanting it. Do what suits your family routine best.

HTH!

Laura

[creations]

Agree with Laura. Only wanted to add that switching from a bottle to something else doesn't necessarily have to take a long time.  Whilst your LO is 10.5 months as laura said I'd keep the bottles.
When mine was 12 months I switch the BT bottle to a sippy cup of milk with a solid supper snack, only took a week for a very calm and easy wean, no upset to BT routine at all.  The WU milk I switched at 13 months, this one took longer as I wanted it to be just as calm and also I needed that milk to remain a really good size of milk. Over 1 month I tried every few days and try some different things.  At 13 months we had happily switched to a straw (rather than sippy cup or bottle). So even our slowest switch was actually quite quick really.
Hope this info helps a little.