Weaning of the Bottle for My Toddler

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If I can offer my advice from experience - STOP THE JUICE - only offer water or milk. My daughter has become a juice addict and is having issues with her teeth becasue of it.

TOUGH LOVE - It may be a really hard few days but they will get a clearer message if you are strong abot it. Don't give them a choice and they will drink what is offered (eventually)

Good Luck!

Hi,

I had the same trouble at 15 months for my daughter. We also had success with the Nuby bottle. I also used a little bit of chocolate ovulatine to help her ease out of the bottle..seemed to help but I didn't use it all the time because I didn't want her to just want chocolate milk. It took about 2 weeks. I only gave in once early on and gave her the bottle..otherwise she just didn't drink milk for a few days. Good Luck.

I had the same problem with my daughter. I found a Nuby brand sippy cup that looks a lot like the bottle. The spout is almost more like a bottle nipple than a sippy. I started giving her milk in that once a day instead of one of her bottles. Over time I gradually replaced all of her bottles with the nuby, then I started replacing the nuby with sippys, she didn't reject the sippys with milk. If that doesn't work you can also try halving a yogurt smoothie with milk in the sippy and see if he'll go for that, since it's sweeter he might like it.

Hi O.,
My doctor told me (at about 17 months) that my son should be off the bottle completely by age 2. Thinking it would take the full 6 months I started right away and it took a week! My son usually took a bottle before bed, so I just started cutting down on the amount offered at bed time. 8oz. went to 6oz. for a day or two. Then to 4oz. and 2oz. I generally made sure that he drank (as much as he wanted) shortly before the bottle so I wouldn't be putting him to bed hungry/thirsty/unsatisfied :o) Also, maybe you and your son should go to the store and buy a special cup just for milk. My son has a "shake" cup and that is all that goes in it. Maybe a milk cup would work. Then he knows that only milk goes into it and that might make it special for him. Not sure if this will work, but it's worth a try. Let us know what works and good luck!

O.,

Ok, so I'm opinionated, but my first suggestion would be to stop offering juice. They don't need it. Second, only offer water and milk from a cup. If he wants the milk, he'll start using a cup. As far as when they should be off the bottle, I always nursed my kids so I don't really know. I think that is a pretty personal thing. No huge medical reason why a bottle would be bad. Now if they are taking it to bed that is a different story (tooth decay potential), but if he is just using it as a cup for his milk at the table or in your arms, I say not a problem unless it is a problem for you. I did have one son who went to daycare and I remember having an especially hard time with getting him to stop drinking out of a bottle, but that was quite a long time ago so my memory is pretty faint. I think he was about 18 months when I finally just put my foot down about it.

As you attempt the transition, remember that he is not a calf and he doesn't really need cows milk. There are other ways to get calcium and Vitamin D, so you might want to look into those if you are concerned about his calcium intake during this time. Just another opinion...I hate milk...hardly ever let my kids drink it...it is made for cows, not people, so it just seems gross to me. A lactation consultant once told me that we should be nursing them until they are 2 and after that no one really needs milk.

Good luck with that. It is so easy to offer advice and so hard to follow through when a baby is screaming!!

D.

O.,

I had the same problem with my now almost 20 month old son. I wanted my son weaned off the bottle at 12 months, but for one reason after another that didn't happen (being sick, teething, going away on vacation, ect.). By 15 months I asked the advice of my pediatrian as to when and how I should take the bottle away. They said to have it gone by age 2 and that the best method was cold turkey. Between 18 and 19 months I picked a weekend and decided no more bottles. I was prepared for 2 nights of no sleeping (that's what my Dr. told me to expect) and 2-3 rough days. It really wasn't bad. I just took all the bottles, nipples, ect and put them in a bag out of sight from my son. He asked for them and I just told them that we had to give them to the babies (he goes to day care). It's been about a month now that we don't use bottles and occationally he'll still ask for them and I just tell him that we don't have anymore but he can always have milk in a cup. He was drinking fine until the last week when he got sick. For almost a week now he has had very little milk, but I just give him a yogurt for a snack each afternoon and add cheese to his diet. He'll come around.

I pulled the bottle at 12 months. My magic trick to get my son to drink milk was to give him a big boy cup & a straw just like his brother and sister. He loved it! Now he loves to eat cereal. Although it is messy, he gets milk that way too.

A.

It's always easier if your child sees older kids drinking from a sippy cup etc., they are always eager to copy. Believe it or not my daughter's grandmother taught her how to drink from a straw in about 20 min.'s - she started drinking from the sippy cup after that. You could also try the story of the poor baby that doesn't have money for a bottle etc., hopefully something on here will work for you :-)