Refusing ALL milk from a cup after moving from bottles

[glamourbadger]

My twins are 18 months and I have switched their morning and evening milk from a bottle to a cup with a hard sippy top. They have gone from drinking around 400mls of milk a day to nothing - as soon as the see the cup they have a big huff and throw it across the room. Has anyone else experienced this? Did they come around to the idea of a cup or was that it for milk?

I'm not overly worried as they eat 3 good meals but it seems mad to go from such a lot of liquid a day to just a few sips of water!

[glamourbadger]

anyone?

[Tommy]

DS2 did this after I stoped breastfeeding him. He just stopped drinking all milk. He was about 13 months. I worried about it a lot at the time but gave hime lots of cheese and yogurt and stuff to make up for it.

If you really want them to have milk and the only way they drink it is in a bottle, you'd best give the bottle back but if you are more worried about them drinking out of a cup then not having so much milk won't harm them too much at this stage

[ladytophamhatt]

if it makes you feel any better my DS3 had his milk in a soft spouty bottle until about 6-8 months ago.

He's 4.3 years

[Phoenix]

My ds is 23 month old and i took his bottles away last week and gave him this instead. He is still drinking milk but nothing like the amount he was drinking from a bottle. I'm tempted to give him a bottle just to see if he's going through one of his not drinking much milk phases or if its the bottle/cup he doesn't like but i think going backwards is a bad idea.

[VictorianSqualor]

Mine hated the hard sippy tops partly because they couldnt get anything out of them, have you tried to drink out of them to see if you can? (the 'non-spill' ones anyway).

Try gradually going from a soft one to a harder one.

[CatIsSleepy]

yep try a softer spout just for their milk

eg tommee tippee 9 months onwards cup

took my dd 2 or 3 days to get used to the switch from a bottle. (she was about 14 months I think). There are times though when she will drink very little milk.

[jacobandlysetteandabump]

ds refused the hard souted sippy non spill cups - when i tried to drink out of one i realised why - they are so difficult!

we use the tommy tippee soft spout 12 month ones (you can get them smaller with handles on), although we do still use a bottle for milk at bed - ds is just coming up on 18 months

[Nip]

i tried moving DS to a sippy cup, (several in fact) and although there was one he liked and seemed to drink a small amount of, it wasnt a lot. I then noticed when DH got up with DS one day he'd given him a bottle and smugly announced that he'd finished it all, so anyway we reverted back. I dont actually know why you stop giving them a bottle, surely it cant harm them.

Going backwards isnt ideal, but hey ho!

[jacobandlysetteandabump]

i think it's to do with sugars being on their teeth longer if they continue with a bottle, and also something to do with tooth formation i seem to remember seeing on another thread, but can't be sure!

i'm pretty certain on the tooth decay thing though

[glamourbadger]

Cheers for all the replies. My worry has come from the dentist saying bottles at this age can push their teeth forward. Am also concerned about the milk sugar on their teeth but TBH I can't see there is much difference between a bottle teat and a soft sippy top?

Will persevere - my instinct says that if they were thirsty or hungry for milk they would drink it regardless of the cup?

I will give the Tommee Tippee ones a go - have tried the cups with the straws but they just waved them around and spilt milk everywhere!

[nannynz]

I worked for a whole year with one of my 18 month old charges(at start) to get her to drink milk from a cup. I chose not to use any type of sippy cup(I try not to use them at all with children - my preferred one is the tommee tippee one), plus any liquid tastes terrible from sippy cup.

I offered milk in cup EVERY day when I was on duty, I used straws, we had drinking races, anything to get her to take a sip. The first few times she would gag and then vomit. But eventually(three weeks before I left) she would drink milk from a cup.

Be consistent and keep offering it.

[Tommy]

just to say about the dentist thing... much to my [shame] DS1 (very nearly 6) will still only drink his (warm) milk out of a beaker with a hard spout - he drinks water out of a cup no problem and the dentist has said that his teeth are perfect.

So, I've been there with the cup and bottle thing hence my "try not to worry" advice

[maxbear]

My dd did something like this, she was probably about 20 months at the time. She used to have 200ml before bed and one day I decided to go bottle cold turkey. She took no milk from a cup, went to bed asking for milk and took ages to settle the first night. She then got better each night and eventually started having milk in a normal cup before bed, but never as much as she had had in the bottle. I don't think that 18 month olds need all that much milk. It just seems odd to us when it was all they had at first.