Talk to me about moving on from formula.

[SummerSevern]

So dd is 9mo, and I'm starting to think wistfully about moving on from formula when she's 1. I just wanted some advice about how to do it.

1. Firstly, number of bottles. She still has 4 bottles a day. Do I want to be weaning her down to 2 once she reaches 1? How did you do that? She's currently having her 20oz a day (more ATM because of growth spurt). If I cut her down to, say, 2 cows milks a day one she's 1, will her solids intake just naturally increase?
   
2. I know we can just move straight on to cow's milk, and I know that 6m+ follow on milk is a marketing ploy, but is follow on milk worth it once she's 1? Especially for a blw baby with the uncanny ability to spot anything that isn't a carb and throw it on the floor. Even bloody swede and carrot mash
   
3. Should I be starting the move to a cup now? She has water in her tippy cup, and I've taken the valve out. She gets on ok but does splutter a bit. We tried a doidy and she can do it, but then she gets excited and it generally ends up on her head.
   

Argh! Sorry for all the questions.
TIA.

[LackingCommonSense]

Bumping and watching with interest as wondering similar things here!

[ilovepowerhoop]

1. at 9 months ds dropped to 3 bottles a day and he got a snack and drink of water instead of the 4th bottle. At around 11 months he dropped his mid-afternoon milk and again this was replaced with a snack/water. At 12 months I gave him cows milk in the AM and formula in the PM (until the formula ran out) and once i saw he was ok with cows milk I moved the PM milk to cows milk too.
   
   
2. There is no need for toddler milk and she will be fine with cows milk.
   
   
3. With ds I started phasing in a cup for milk quite early and offered 1 milk feed from the cup from 9 months leaving the rest in the bottle. He took to it well so he ended up on cups for all feeds by 12 months (with dd I hadnt introduced milk in the cup until after the age of 1 and she ended up with milk in a cup from about 15 months)

[LackingCommonSense]

This might be a silly question, but by 'cup ' do you mean an actual cup or a beaker? Presumably you'd have said beaker if you meant that but needed to check! I thought bedtime bottles were standard for a long time?

[ilovepowerhoop]

I meant a lidded cup or beaker. We got on well with the tommee tippee first cup and the avent magic cup. It is advised to phase out bottles by the age of 1 so although the bottle was gone ds still had milk but from a lidded cup instead.

[SummerSevern]

Thanks. I was thinking of phasing out a milk feed, but I need to wait until she gets this growth spurt out of the way.
I might try milk in a cup tomorrow. See how it goes. I may have to don a rain coat...

[sittingatmydeskagain]

I found they my two dropped the feeds quite naturally, although it basically turned into a beaker of milk first thing, another mid afternoon, and one at bedtime.

In fact, DS2 is 7 years now, but still has three cups a day.

I went straight to cows milk. Ds2 kept his evening bottle until around 15 months, others were beakers.

Ds1 was moved onto beakers at 13 months, as he was screaming for two 9 oz bottles at a time, and was off the centile chart! Moved to beakers, and his weight settled back to the 91st line which is his usual place.