My son is currently 11 mo. and I had planned on switching him from formula to milk when he was 1. However, since the daycare that he will be going to for a day needs me to bring a new can of formula in when he attends, I wanted to avoid this since it is two days before he's 1. So I thought maybe I could start him a week earlier. I had planned on slowly transitioning him by giving him part formula part milk until it was all milk. Any suggestions?
Also, since he will be 1 soon I though this might be a good time to get him off the bottle. He currently takes 4 bottles a day but getting him to take first and last bottles (which are only 4oz) are a struggle at times. He often only takes 1-2 oz. of these bottles. Is it too soon to take him off the bottle?
I switched my daughter to milk with a little bit of formula when she was a little past her 11 month birthday. I then switched her to milk a couple of weeks after that. She started on a sippy cup when she was 9 months old. I used the Nuby sippy cups and she took to it right away. Good luck!
I agree ith everyone else. You should have no problem switching. The only thing that I have done with both of my girls is to switch them cold turkey. Thye will drink it.
My only suggestion is that you do not change to a sippy cup when you first give your child milk. I would start by giving him his formula, or water, or juice in a sippy cup. If he takes to the sippy quickly I would get rid of the bottles right away. I have had friends switch to a sippy and change to milk at the same time and their children refused to drink milk after that even when putting it in a bottle. Good luck!
I wish you the best.
My children never took to a bottle so my advice may not be that helpful, but here are my 2 cents.....Both my daughters started on a sippy cup at 6 months with water. At 1, with my first I just started giving her milk in the sippy and she was weaned from nursing by her 1st birthday. With my 2nd daughter, who is 11 1/2 months old, she nurses 2-3 times day and I have just started weaning her to 2 times a day. She has been getting whole milk for about 2 weeks now. The doctor said it was okay to introduce it at 11 months. She currently drinks whole milk with all meals and steals her sisters skim milk when ever she finds it where it does not belong. The kids are not allowed to walk around with food or drink--only water. My first took a couple of months to take to milk. We refused to put sweetner in it and gave her 2 yo baby yogurts a day until she started drinking more milk. She currently is a milk fiend. We also do not allow juice. Their only choice is milk or water and milk is a must at meal times.
Good luck! K.
My son (now 3) took himself off the bottle and formula at 6 months old. One day he just would not drink the bottle or the formula and has been on milk ever since.
Age one is not a "magic" number. I switched my son to regular milk at 10 1/2 months. What I did was start out with one milk bottle a day and the rest formula. I gradually increased the milk over a 3 week period until I ran out of my last can of formula. After that he was fine. He never had any problems with the switchover. My son was on regular milk-based formula though, so if your's is on soy, I'd ask your pediatrician first.
you should start now by mixing mostly formula with a little milk and then gradually increasing the milk part and decreasing formula. this should happen over several weeks. it's tough for babies to make this switch. our son, as well as lots of our friends' kids, had trouble transitioning to dairy. organic milk is best & cheapest at whole foods.
we started using sippy cups when our son was about 6 months old, so he had no problem giving up the "bottle" around 11 months. we just started putting his milk into a sippy cup. if your son has never used a sippy cup before, start by giving him 1 or 2 drinks during the day (water or milk) in the sippy cup. then gradually increase all his drinks to the cup one at a time. the cups with the handles are nice but your son probably doesn't even need those handles at 11 months if he can hold a bottle by himself.
hope this all helps. most likely, you'll be buying 1 more can of formula for the transition...
You shouldn't have any problems switching him to whole milk early. We switched our son three weeks early (he just turned one a week ago). We initially started doing a little milk and the rest formula, but then one time I just decided to try all whole milk (because we ran out of formula) and I warmed it for him a little...needless to say he drank it down like a champ. Now we are in the process of giving it to him mainly cold except for the bottle right before bed where we warm that for him. Also, we too are trying to get him away from the bottle so we bought some cheap sippy cups (I think you get five for three bucks at target) and tried those yesterday and he loved it. So I would just give it a try and see how he does. We still give him one bottle before bed but otherwise he gets a sippy cup for any other meal time.
Dear T.;
I went cold turkey with both my kids and they transitioned just fine. We stopped the formula and the bottles in one shot. My daughter was 12 months and my son was 11 months. No fuss no muss. They weren't the best with their sippy cups, but we helped them and they caught on before we knew it.
Good Luck
Hi T.! Me again! ha ha ha
We seem to be pretty similar in many of our situations. If I recall your also living with inlaws and pregnant?? I hope your having a better time of that then I am.
Ok as for the milk. I started my daughter on milk about 1-2 weeks early. She turned out to be pretty easy. I never gave her milk in a bottle. I just introduced the sippy cup with milk for the first time. I didn't push it, just offered it throughout the day and with meals. She did not get juice in her sippy cup for a month or more until after she was used to drinking milk out of the sippy and totally off the bottle. I don't think it's too soon to take him off the bottle, it's about when we did it. I would replace 2 of his bottles with sippy cups and leave the first bottle of the day and the last bottle of the day alone until he's comfortable with a sippy. It only only took us maybe a week or two and she was off the bottle and off formula. Whenever I gave her a bottle I used formula and whenever she had a sippy it was with milk. I don't know if that's recommeneded or not but it worked for us. Good luck!
