No bottles after 12 mos? But how?

[HeatherC]

Dd is about 1 month away from her 1st b-day.  Her ped recommends we have her off the bottle as soon as possible from 12 mos.  From reading almost every post on this board, I'm assuming it's because it's better for oral development, and easier to do it sooner than later.  So, with breakfast and lunch, I put the formula in the sippy (every time, every day) and try to get her to drink it that way first.  I've tried 10 different sippies since she was 6mos.  There are 2 she likes best, but neither she will drink milk from regularly.  It's usually just by chance if she's very thirsty.
I have lots of questions on how to prepare for no more bottles and no more formula:
 :arrow: Should I start dropping one bottle a week until her 12 mos or should I wait to see if she drops them on her own (which I doubt)?
 :arrow: When she is off the formula, do I increase her solids say from a 4 oz jar to 6-8 ozs and offer whole milk?  She does take about 5 oz of half-strength juice during the day.
 :arrow: She will eat yogurt, but is that enough to compensate for milk?
 :arrow: Won't she be hungry from missing 24 oz of formula a day?  If she wakes at night, would I give her a bottle?

This is her current eating schedule if it helps:
8 am 4 oz puree, 7 oz bottle
12:30 4 oz puree, maybe some finger foods, little juice with meal, 8 oz bottle
5:30 4 oz puree, maybe some finger foods, juice
7:30 8 oz bottle
Juice also before naps after playing

[maggieruth]

can i ask a stupid question? is it the bottle or the formula which is undesireable?  my son went straight to a cup after not wanting a bottle for EBM

[HeatherC]

My understanding is that the bottle is undesirable, and the formula unnecessary after the 1st year.

[Stacie:Emma&Josh Mom]

The ideas is that at around 1 year, your baby should be getting most nutrition from food and having whole milk as their drink, just like a little adult in a way.  I agree that it's bottles that are undesirable and formula that is unnessary.  Have you tried the Nuby sippy cup where the spout is shaped like a sippy but made of silicone like a nipple?  That's what we used to transition so she could still suck like a bottle sort of but get used to how it worked like a sippy too.  We'd give her milk in that and her water in a regular sippy.  Once she had the regular sippy down pretty well, we switched the milk as well (at around 13 months).  The idea isn't necessarily to drop feeds, but to make them more "grown up".  So you'd have breakfast food with milk, a mid-morning snack of finger foods with water maybe, then lunch with milk, an afternoon snack of finger foods with water again, then dinner with milk and again milk at bedtime if you're still doing that (although it's great to drop that as soon as you can as well).  Good luck!

[Diego's Mama]

I never ditched the bottle at one year.......... cut back on them yes.  Emilio's one and half and still has a few a day.  He eats spectacularly well, drinks out a cup, the whole kit and kaboodle, but I personally feel that a baby of that age still has an urge to suck.

I actually don't wean off the evening/bedfore bed bottle until after two.  Diego weaned after two and it wasn't an issue at all.  We did so over the course of a few months and he adjusted without a hitch.

I don't get the push to have the baby off the bottle -- if it's two a day or something, no biggie.  If it's getting in the way of food consumption, that's another issue.

[tylersmommy]

I don't think there's a big rush to drop the bottle at 1 yr either, but Tyler wasn't attached to his bottle at all so I took advantage of that and slowly phased them out once he started whole milk. Like Stacie said, the idea is that they use the sippy to drink milk like a person, so sometimes it takes some getting used to before your LO starts drinking enough milk. Tyler was on 4 bottles, and we dropped 1 every 2 wks or so to give his appetite time to adjust to eating more solids. If you take it slow, she probably won't wake from hunger during the night. If she's not interested in milk or isn't drinking much, you can compensate with yogurt, cheese, or other dairy products.

Oh, and we kept Tyler's bedtime bottle until he was 15 mo old...we'd planned to keep it longer, but I forgot to pack bottles when we went out of town. :oops: He didn't miss it at all.

[Deb_in_oz]

Heather - i agree with Laura - don't stress about 3 bottles a day for now.  i woudl pick 1 bottle to start with an work on getting her to drink the whole milk (start at 12 mo) from her cup.  whatever she takes she takes (so maybe do lunchtime) - she wil learn over the course of a week that there is no bottle later on (so she will probably start to try to take more from the cup) when/if she successfully drinks milk form the cup you can start to think about morning bottle - can give milk in cup at breakfast or afterwards. if you want to keep the bedtime one even longer i woudl think nothing of it (we dropped it for alex at 20 mo when we realized it was a pain having bottles for both girls - i wish we had kept it longer because she woudl not take it from a cup no matter what so to this day drinks nothing but water  :shock: )


the kids the bottles are a problem for are 1) those that drink excessive quantities of milk and eat little food because they are full from milk and 2) those that carry around bottles all day or sleep with them = can get cavities.

Dh's cousins 4yo dd was still having  4-5 bottles of milk a day  :shock:

[HeatherC]

Thanks for all the advice.  It is really helping me plan this out.  I'm assuming that the time she is still taking a bottle after 12 mos that the bottle will just contain whole milk rather than formula.

[Leah's Mom]

Heather - Yes, I assume that the bottles after one year would contain whole milk. Our plan is to offer milk from a sippy at breakfast, lunch, and supper. Then still offer her the bottle until she gets used to the sippy with milk. I'm not going to stress about dropping the bottle, although I think her sitter wants me to...