How/When to stop using the bottle

[mommy2two]

My dd is 12months now and on 4 bottles per day (7am, 11am, 3pm and 7pm) with 3 solid meals inbetween (at 8:30am, 12:30pm and 5pm). I know I should start dropping bottles and moving her to a sippy cup but I am not sure how. I'm looking for people who have done this and can offer suggestions.
Thanks!

[Mum to Ella Rose]

I think lots of people give milk with the snack but what we did was start giving her milk with meals, plus the bedtime bottle. So when she wakes we'd do breakfast and milk, snack with water, lunch with milk, snack with water, supper with milk and then the bottle before bed. Once she got used to this we slowly started offering her her milk in a sippy at meals. She would only have a few sips at first and we would then finish off with a bottle. Gradually she got the hang of the sippy and started to take more and more so we eliminated the bottle altogether with the bedtime one being the last change. It took about two weeks total. When she has water with her snacks we use a regular cup and we're hoping to do the same type of transition to get her to drink her milk out of this. Does this make any sense?  I hope it helps a bit... oh and we couldn't get dd to drink out of a sippy at all for the longest time even though she would take water out of a regular cup... one day she went to the cupboard she's "allowed" to open (with all the tupperware etc) and she just took her cup out and started to pretend drink. That's when we just went for it.

Good luck and I'd love to hear how you progress!

Sharon

[mommy2two]

Thanks so much for sharing your experience. She loves to drink water from her sippy, so today I put a little milk in it and she took a few sips (thinking it would be water) and then threw it down and refused anymore. She has a great sense of smell and right away knew it was not water. I guess I will just keep trying this at every meal....or do you think that instead of giving her a bottle (we always do bottles in the rocking chair after a nap) I should bring a sippy cup with her formula in it and then if she will let me give her the sippy of formula like I do her bottle (I'm doubt she will) then gradually put milk in it and then gradually move it downstairs to the highchair with meals??

What do you think? She is really picky and stubborn so I already have my doubts it would go smoothly.

[Mum to Ella Rose]

I would try it that way... just keep offering it and top her up with the bottles. I don't have much experience with this... that's just what worked for us. And when I said it took about two weeks, that was only after she started accepting anything from a sippy. We'd been offering her various ones for a few months to no avail. You might want to experiment with different types of cups too. Just try and make it a "fun" experience with no pressure. She'll get the hang of it sooner or later. When our dd took even one sip we thought that was a great success!  :lol:

Sharon

[Sandrine]

It's almost like weaning from the breast. Take it slowly and remove only one per every few days or wks. Remove the one that she like less. You can replace it by a sippy cup, but don't force it. Give her time to get uses to having the sippy. ALso you can always get a special sippy that will only have milk in it.

I read this somewhere but i don't remember where. lol

I tried this with dd1 but she was so stubborn that i just stop giving her bottles and she was just better without it then having the bottle replace by sippies of milk. Now she is fine with milk in any cup/sippy