14 Month Old Not Drinking After We Took Her off the Bottle

My son (who's now 18 months old) has still not adapted to a regular sippy cup, but he transitioned really well to a Nuby cup, which has a soft top more like a bottle and has not used a baby bottle for about 5 months now. You can get them at Jewel, CVS, Wal-Mart, and they're cheap so it's worth the $2 to try it out. Every so often we try another sippy cup but he really doesn't like them - I think it's the softness that he can chew on the spout that he likes. Hope this helps!

HI

I had the same problem. I have four children and this happened to all of them. My youngest who 2 1/2 still gets one bottle of milk at night. I know what all people say about giving a bottle to a two year old but frankly I dont care what people think.I feel she really needs it. My other three still dont drink milk anymore. I have heard it happening to other people perhaps its the taste of the milk.

My daughter drank nothing but water from 11 1/2 mos until about 19 mos. I was really worried at first, but made sure she received calcium through yogurt, cheese, even ice cream. I kept offering about once a week or so and one day she just asked for it. Hope this helps!

We use two different types of sippy cups for my daughter, one for water and one type for milk. It has seemed to work well since she never expects her milk in her water sippy cup. For the milk we use the Nuby which has a soft top like a bottle.

I had the same problem with my son. In order to get him to drink from the sippy cups in the first place I had put water-filled cups all over the house so that they were there whenever he wanted them. I also went through a ton of different cups before I finally found some he'd drink from.

When it came time to pull the bedtime bottle, he totally refused to have milk in any kind of cups. Eventually I had to take all the water cups away and only give him one AFTER he'd drank a certain amount of milk at mealtimes. Every meal I'd give him a half sippy cup of milk and tell him he could have water after he'd finished it. I'd make that cup follow him around after the meal until he drank it or it started to be long enough that I'd replace it with fresh milk. We wasted quite a bit of milk during that period. Otherwise I gave him some water now and again (he had a water sippy cup we always took in the car and usually got water before bed - boy did he suck down water when he got his hands on those!) so I knew he wouldn't get dehydrated. I was also trying to sneak cheese and yogurt in on him to make sure he got the calcium in the meantime. On top of that, my husband and I would make a point of drinking full glasses of milk with our own dinner, right in front of him, to set the example (I HATE milk myself - I normally take calcium supplements instead!). Then we would tell him that once we'd finished OUR milk, we could have something different to drink afterwards too, just like he did. He finally adjusted and has milk with breakfast and lunch consistently and sometimes even asks for more after dinner.

The only thing is I STILL (he's 3 1/2 now) can't get him to drink anything OTHER than milk or water. He'll try juices occasionally, but generally just a few sips and then he'll ignore it. That's not as much of a problem, however, since most of those juices are sugary anyway. I make sure he gets fruit with lunch most days, so he's getting the nutrients that juice has in it.

Hello,

I had the same problem with my daughter when I took her off the bottle. I didn't take my daughter off the bottle completely until she was 24 months old. I began by only giving her the bottle before bed time. During the day I would give her the sippy cup; she too would not drink milk from the sippy cup. She associated milk with her bottle and refused to drink milk from cup. She was about 2 1/2 when I completely stopped the bottle at bed time. I know it seems long to wait, but my daughter wasn't ready to stop drinking out of the bottle. My daughter loves cheese, so I gave her a lot of cheese since she didn't want milk. Then I tried giving her milk from a regular cup and she started drinking it again. My daughter is now 3 and drinks milk ALL the time out of her sippy cup. I think you should go at your daughter's pace, not at the pediatrician's pace when taking her off the bottle. Each child is different and we can't expect them all to develop at the same pace.

I hope this helps. Good luck.

R.,
Don't worry about it, as long as she's getting the yogurt and cheese she will be fine. ( my 13 year old doesn't even drink milk at all so I have to buy orange juice w/calcium)
I went thru this with my grandaughter when she was taken off the bottle also.
It was the same exact way, what I did was continue to give her a little milk in her sippy cup and make a game of it.
Like playing peek-a-boo with the milk.
Cover your eyes as you would normally and say I can still see the milk. I did this for about a month then she started drinking on her own.
C.

I just took my 1 year old off the bottle. One of my friends told me to use Oberwies (sorry for the misspell) milk because it is creamier until my son got use to drinking the milk from the sippy cup. Also, I am using the Nobby sippy cups for the milk because I felt the part they drink from is soft like a bottle. They are inexpensive too! My son is now drinking from the cup and gets excited about the milk like it was his bottle. He was doing the same thing your daughter was doing when I just use the regular sippy cup and regular whole milk in the begining. He would make a face and push the cup away. Now he is drinking the whole cup up and we just switch to store brand milk.

Good luck. Hope this helps.

E.

Hi Ruthan,

My daughter would not take milk period. (I nursed a year and then tried to introduce milk via the sippy cup.) Like your daugher, she would only drink water. My doc said it was fine as long as I was getting her to eat yogurt and cheese. When she started eating regular cereal with milk I found she liked milk from the spoon. Eventually she started liking regular milk. You could also as a last resort try Ovaltine. I know it's "chocolate" milk, but it's better than no milk if you ask me. Good luck!

Dear R. -

This was my experience with my son around 14 1/2 months...I started to give him milk and juice from a sippy cup during the day only....I kept giving him the bottle before bed time at night...once my son became used to the quickness of the sippy cup and ability to take larger quicker gulps of liquid...the bottle didn't satify him anymore at night time around a month or so...so what happened is that he started not wanting the bottle and moving it away...with his hand and then I started giving him the sippy cup at night too...and the bottle was old news....not sure if this will work for you...but this worked for us. See if it will help... Good luck!!

HI Ruthan. Have you tried warming the mild to go in the sippy? This helped my little guy. Also, I bought those yogurt smoothies (liquid yogurt in the yogurt section-the ones geared towards adults) and added some to his milk. He LOVED that. ALso Keifer works well too. (jewel sells it) And then you can back off on the yogurt part and add more milk. I would only add a huge splash just to give it some flavor.
HOpe that helps. S.

Hi Ruth Ann,

My daughter was breastfed so we never used a bottle, but she also didn't like drinking milk from her sippy cup when we started weaning around 12 months old. I switched to a straw sippy and she took to that right away. She's 2 now and still if I try to put her milk in the old valved sippy she rejects it. it's thicker so I don't know if she found it frustrating to suck it through the valve.

Good luck!
J.

Make it chocolate milk and she might drink it. My daughter just started drinking milk at 20 months, she refused it in anyway before, now she eats cereal and I let her drink the milk from the bowl - either with a straw or just sipping from the bowl (yes, she makes a mess - but atleast she is drinking it) My kid will only take chocolate milk when she feels like it, but she always asks for cereal and milk. I know she will get used to the taste and crave it, just have to wait until that day arrives. My daughter also drinks 2 danimal yogurts a day - thats her favorite thing right now. GOOD LUCK!