Any ideas on getting rid of the bottle?

[emfields]

My little one is 18 months old now and while she uses her drinking cup during the day for water or juice she wont take her morning/bedtime milk from the cup at all. I have tried a few times to see if she will just take to it but she refuses and as soon as i transfer it to the bottle she will drink it.

Does anyone have any ideas on how i can loose the bottle all together?

[Lana]

Do you really want to get rid of it? 

We just stopped using them and put the milk in a cup.  With my first we stopped cold turkey at 12 months and his consumption did drop at first but soon got back up and we just made sure he had other dairy to make up for it.  My second we weaned one bottle at a time and finished when he was 13.5 months old.  He does fine now with the cup.

Like anything else it is jus ta matter of consistency and patience.  You need to keep offering the milk in a cup because obvioulsy she knows how to use one right

[lilmonkey]

Getting rid of the bottle is going to be harder on you than it it on them.  I agree with Lana about being consistent and patient.  Dd's milk consumption dropped the first time we tried it and I gave in.  I tried again right after she better from a stomach flu and we haven't looked back since.  I think that it helped to retry again at that time b/c when she got better all she wanted was milk and it didn't matter where it came from.  Oh, make sure that your lo doesn't see the bottle or she will want it again.

Good luck.

[emfields]

Thanks, i think i will try cold turkey at the weekend when i have more time and patience. I guess we all put pressure on ourselves to follow guildline to change things like getting rid of bottles at 12mth! I knew she wasnt ready then but i think she would be fine now, guess its just breaking the habit now.

[debo620]

Lana,
just wondering what is the best way to drop the bedtime bottle. I think I read in another post you did this recently? Is my goal to have him take 7oz from a sippy at bedtime or should I be moveing that milk earlier aswell and then bedtime is just a top up in a sippy? kwim?

here's our feeding routine:
wake 6
6:30 bkfst and 6oz average milk in sippy
10 light snack--yogourt
11:00/11:15 lunch
11:45 -1:45pm nap
2:30 4oz milk in sippy/crackers
5:15/5:30 supper
6:30 7oz milk

should I just drop the snack milk--(4oz at 2:30), and then do milk with supper out of a sippy---he'll maybe take 4/5oz and then bedtime top up of 2-3oz at 6:30pm out of sippy.
This is stupid---but I'm all concerned that he'll either wake in the night or wake early in the am due to hunger if he doesn't have the milk at bedtime. I have been leary to change this milk to a sippy because I don't think he'll take 7oz all in one sittiing and quickly enough--like he does with the bottle.
TIA

[Lana]

Hey Deb

We did just drop the bottle about 1 month ago and it was our last one.  I just slowly made it smaller.  It was 8oz and then we did:

5 days 7oz
5 days 6oz
5 days 5oz
5 days 4oz
5 days 3oz

Then we stopped all together.  When we got to 6oz I started to offer cereal before his bath (he had the bottle after) and slowly made that bigger.  Now he has 6tblsp of cereal before the bath with his sippy.

HTH

[debo620]

ok thanks Lana!
our supper and bedtime are so close together that I might just try milk with supper and then bedtime milk is still in the bottle but the amount will be reducing until we get rid of it.

[maggie2]

We had a really difficult time getting ds to drink anything from a sippy.  What really helped us were those "Nuby" sippy cups - some people will say that they are too much like a bottle, but they really helped us to transition to cups earlier.  they have a silicone top that is reminiscent of a bottle - it was just enough to get ds to actually drink from anything but a bottle.

Now we do mostly normal sippy's with an occasional nuby morning or night.

[mrsrobbo]

we just stopped! The milk intake did drop a little so he now gets some additional cold milk in the day for a drink

[bicah]

At about 12 months, we went from the bottle to the Nuby sippy cups which are very similar to a bottle then we just gave sippy cups. Also, right before we began the switch over, our Dr. reccommended that we do a bottle with only water in it before bedtime (making sure he had enough milk/formula during the day). So he really didnt want that too much at first and he wasnt looking for a bottle at bedtime. I also got a few different sippy cups (handles, pictures and different spouts) so he always had soemthing different to drink from. He seemed to like that. I will agree though, it was much harder for me to stop giving him a bottle than it was for him. They grow up so quick!