when will she be happy again? No more bottles

[BeeMyBaby]

On Sunday we decided to take away DD's (16months) bottles as she can drink water fine from a sippy cup or straw and was just refusing to drink milk from them. We are now on day 3 of miserable baby at milk times and she is taking in about 100ml of milk a day instead of about 500ml - she does seem to be replacing the calories with food though. For those who took the tough approach (after I had been too lenient) when did your child cheer up and drink their milk without screaming in horror at the sight of no bottle? She even tried to wrestle her cousin for her transition bottle yesterday (which incidentally I had previously tried with her and she refused).

"I get rid of bottles by a year - they are no longer babies and can by this point drink from a cup/beaker."

Of course they can - but why should they? And of course they are still babiesa - mine were still 6 months away from walking at 12 months!

Don't understand all the outrage on this thread tbh..

BeeMyBaby Have you tried these nuby cups ? DS found them much easier than the straw ones and they were a nice alternative to bottles with the silicone top, but not as hard as a cup or straw.

HTH

they are no longer babies and can by this point drink from a cup/beaker

Spectacularly missing the point there

I'm not suggesting people should follow guidelines to the letter or treat them as gospel, but isn't it recommended that you move away from bottles after the first year?

oh god dd is two now and for the last few weeks we have taken her bottles away, as she too uses them as a comfort. to my shame we let her have them all day (with weak squash) as it kept her happy and not miserable.

result: miserable, grouchy, evil toddler. but not giving in now.

so watching this with interest.

:(

another update, although she didn't drink milk during the day yesterday (which is fine as she had a much more healthy diet than just milk) she happily drank over 100ml out of her nuby cup with straw in the evening before bed, she was happy all evening and the bottle upset is officially over. I'm really glad we did this, and although the first three days were hard, I'm pleased we didn't give in - and we're definitely not going to give her bottles back now! What would be the point?

We had try to gradually swap over (over the last 7 months), and we had made sure she was very capable of using the other straws/sippy cups before she did, she was just choosing not to drink milk from them, so that approach wasn't working.

try should be tried

Sounds like it's going really well Bee, :)

IMO I think it's easier to do this at a slightly younger age.. we eventually ditched the bottles nearer 2 and it was a big struggle.

And the "angry" DH?

There is NO good reason to take a baby's bottle away unless they are wandering round all day sucking away. A bottle for milk a couple of times a day will not do any harm at all - and taking away a child's comfort object for no good reason is, IMHO, very cruel. You wouldn't take away a teddy because "now you're 1 you're not a baby any more" would you?

Or maybe you would?

Hi there BeeMyBaby - I think people are giving you rather a hard time over this. My DD stopped having bottles at about 13mo - she was just having a couple of ounces twice a day from the bottle and was obviously just having it out of habit so we moved to doidy cups and she was fine. I'm glad we did it as continued use of bottles is bad for little one's teeth. You've done what you believe is best for your baby (and I happen to agree with you) and it seems to be going well now. I imagine it must be harder to wean children off bottles when they are 3 or 4 so you have got that phase behind you.

just a difference of opinion seeker :)

Some things are opinion - some things aren't.

I disagree

Why?

You said 'IMHO', then you said that some things aren't a matter of opinion.

IMO it's fine to swap to a cup at this age, in your opinion it's not. Not trying to start a fight! :)

6f course it's fine to swap. But this isn;t swapping - it's forcing the child to change for no good reason.

Sorry - I thought you were the poster who said that they aren;t babies at 1 so shouldn;t have bottles.

No no, that's not me :)

Well the bottle could do harm to a baby's teeth, so its not harmless, just because many chldren on here seem to be lucky enough that it didn't, doesn't mean my DD would be lucky enough for it not to cause complications, and eventually possibly far greater discomfort with poor enamel.

Bit late to contribute here, but I'm glad things are settling down a bit by the sound of it. She is your baby - well done for working through this. I don't think she'll be embittered at you in later life because you took her bottle, and of course it's your own decision, but I don't think a toy will spoil her.

As far as your DH being worried about the toy, I think as long as all the toys a child has are not out together, and they just have a few toys at a time to choose from each day, then it does not affect their attention span. I believe there is research to back that up (I don't think I made it up :) )

We stopped both DDs using bottles around the 6-7 month mark. They were drinking water from sippy cups from weaning (the Tommee Tippee ones that everyone has - can't remember the name of them...). We found they wouldn't drink milk from those same cups - I guess it was confusing. We tried a couple of different ones with no luck, but the Amadeus Cow Cup proved a real favourite with them and they never looked back, though they did drink slower at first.

We were really worried about DD1's teeth, but this was because when I stopped expressing (after 5 1/2 months) we found she was allergic to milk, so she went onto Soya formula, which is always sweetened unfortunately. I do know someone whose daughter lost all her teeth from drinking soya formula from a bottle, but have never seen anyone have a problem with regular milk. Thankfully DD1's teeth are fine. We just did the same with DD2, though she was on regular milk - it seemed normal for us after DD1. Now both girls are not that interested in milk. I asked the paediatrician about it and he just said so long as they have a balanced diet then there is no problem, and that "milk is not a magic food".

Hope it continues to get easier.

BTW I did attend a talk on babies dental health (actually I sat through it twice by accident / sheer bad luck on two separate occasions) and we were warned about tooth decay from drinking regular milk from a bottle, so I fully understand your concerns Bee. In the post above I was just saying I had no personal experience of problems from that. :)

Bottle are harmful if children continuously drink from them during the day and night. One bottle at night time, drunken all at once, (teeth brushed afterwards), is not going to harm her teeth.

If she drinks her milk from a bottle, but finishes it all in one go, rather than wandering round with a bottle in her mouth all day, which I presume she isn;t. it's not going to harm her teeth.