Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

Flip

1 2

Original poster

What age did you get rid of the bottle?

46 replies

MammyShirl · 19/09/2004 13:05

My 18 mth dd has two bottles a day when she takes her morning nap and going to bed. She has warm milk and drinks it lying down in her cot then falls asleep. I f she has it before she takes longer to go down. I know they say you should stop giving them bottles around the age if one. What did you do?

I tried once giving her milk in a beaker and she cried and threw it at me, I guess its not as comforting and milk in plastic beakers does not taste the same.

Any advice much appreciated.

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

suzywong · 19/09/2004 13:09

get rid of the bottle??
I don't understand?
DS1 i s 3 and half and has 2 a day, DS2 is 1 and has just cottoned on to it. MIL told me yesterday that DH was 5 before she could get him off the bottle so I, personally am not breaking my neck over it.

If your dd likes the bottle and as you say finds it comforting then I don't see any problem with carrying on. What do ' know anyway

joanneg · 19/09/2004 13:10

my ds was about 21 months when I stopped giving him a bottle. He would not drink milk out of the beaker at all and used to threw it at me too!
I filled his diet up with calcium from other areas such as cheese.

I have now discovered he will drink milk from a Thomas the tank cup and a twirly straw!! This was after about 5 cup changes trying to get him to have milk. It has taken a couple of months for him to stop his bottle protest and drink milk again! Now he asks for milk.

It was such a good feeling to throw away the steriliser and bottles for good!!

Original poster

MammyShirl · 19/09/2004 13:12

Good!

What harm could it do anyway? Its not like she walks around all day with bottle of juice hanging from mouth. I can see how that could cause tooth decay. She has all drinks out of cups and two bottles of milk which she gulps down within miniutes before drifting off.

OP posts:

Original poster

MammyShirl · 19/09/2004 13:14

I stopped sterilising alond time ago, i have just three bottles which i rinse out with all the dishes.

Maybe i could try some different cups - they make me laugh how they make us run around

OP posts:

Twiglett · 19/09/2004 13:16

message withdrawn

carla · 19/09/2004 13:28

Sorry to say this MS ... haven't read it all .. but dd (4) STILL wants one at night time

KateandtheGirls · 19/09/2004 13:31

Once they could drink easily from a sippy cup and were using the sippy cup during the day, then I gave them sippy cups for their pre-bedtime milk and neither minded. They were both somewhere between 18 and 24 months. I just feel more comfortable myself when they're using a sippy cup rather than a bottle, but in reality I don't think it makes much difference.

EvanMom · 19/09/2004 13:44

I weaned ds1 from bottle to cup at 13 months. ds2 would never take a bottle - believe me we tried very hard! So I weaned him from breast to cup at 8 months (Tommy Tippee).
I figure they do it when they are ready, so no need to stress - I offered ds1 milk in a cup occasionally and after a while he started to take it. Soon the cup took over from the bottle and the night time bottle was the last to go.
Suggest you just keep offering the cup every so often....

80sMum · 19/09/2004 14:30

DS never had a bottle, so no problem there. DD weaned off bottles at 4 months. Both started using a spouted cup at 4 months or so. It's all a matter of personal preference. If you don't mind your 3-year-old still sucking on bottles and/or dummies at that age then there is no need to worry about when to take it away. If you think you would mind, then take them away early - certainly well before 12 months. It becomes very difficult, and indeed it's cruel, to take such things away once the baby/child has come to think of them as comfort objects.

prefernot · 19/09/2004 15:51

Dd only started having a bottle at about 10 months old and never really saw it as a 'comfort' or 'sleep' type object so it was no real problem getting her off that and onto a cup at about 15 months old. Personally speaking I don't have a huge 'problem' with older toddlers having bottles but I perhaps wouldn't be so keen on using one as a way for them to get to sleep, just because I think all those things can become something too depended upon and the longer you leave them in place the harder it is going to be to take them away. I have two friends whose 2 boys go to bed with a bottle of milk at ages 5 and 6 and the chaos it causes if their mums try to say no is not worth it.

Then again, as I'm writing, I'm wondering what's really wrong with them doing that at 5 and 6 ... Is it something to do with tooth rot that makes people against it?

nutcracker · 19/09/2004 16:23

My Dd's both gave theirs up at about 18mths i think, maybe a bit sooner. The only reason I was bothered about it though was because they had hot choccie not just milk, so i changed it to a cup and they were fine.

Ds is 21mths and still has his bottle. He onlt has milk in it of a morning and at night so i'm not bothered.
I have tried him with it in a cup and he wouldn't drink it.

Anyway he is my baby he has to have a bottle until he is at least 8

Angeliz · 19/09/2004 16:27

suzywong thankyou!!!!

I was about to gracefully bow out without answering but read your post and feel brave.
DD is 3.6 too and has a botle of milk every morning. She's JUST started to drink it from a cup at nursery but if i give her a cup, won't drink any milk!
IMO, at the moment i like her to drink her milk and nobody sees the bottle but me so.....................

clairabelle · 19/09/2004 16:37

dd was 2.5 before she gave up her nighttime bottle and the only reason for this was she took a fancy to a china peter rabbit cup my mum bought her and that became her nighttime drink cup.

Beccles · 19/09/2004 17:08

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

edam · 19/09/2004 17:11

Thank you for reassuring me . I was starting to feel guilty about ds, 14 mos, still drinking three bottles a day, because 'they' all say that you should ditch bottles around a year old. He will drink water from a cup, although not huge amounts, but milk just gets shaken all over the place (I use ordinary sippy cups, not the spill-proof ones, on dental advice). Had been trying to convince myself it was OK but couldn't help feeling like a Bad Mummy. So thanks for the thread, feel much better now!

woodstock · 19/09/2004 17:22

I was actually getting ready to post the same question. DS at 13 months will take a sippy cup for water but prefers the bottle for milk. After reading the thread I feel better about not stressing the "get rid of the bottle at one" thing.

nikcola · 19/09/2004 17:25

dd (2.8) has her morning and evening choccie milk out of a bottle but drinks jucie out of her magic cup im not bothered if she keeps drinking out of her bottle her teeth are more messed up from sweets than the bottle

littlemissbossy · 19/09/2004 17:25

I finally forced my ds off bottles when he was 3 and he has refused milk ever since (but eats loads of cheese and yoghurt instead) ... until this week when he started school and all of the children have a carton mid-morning. BTW it was my dentist who made me think about getting him off them, frightened me with gory details of tooth decay

CassieD · 19/09/2004 17:28

Edam,
Out of curiosity, what is the dental advise that is against the spill proof sippy cups?

My 18 month old isn't particularly fond of sippy cup, but she will drink from them if she's thirsty enough. We still give her foormula (SMA follw on) first thing in the morning and just before bed because it has a lot more vitamins than regular cows milk.

competitionwinningCOD · 19/09/2004 17:32

I always bin them at one since i saw an old photo of ds1 with one at 18 mohts adnn IMo it looked ridiculous

competitionwinningCOD · 19/09/2004 17:35

\link{http://www.parentsplace.com/expert/dentist/qas/0,,239966_106632,00.html\bottles dmaging teeth(and milek too)

competitionwinningCOD · 19/09/2004 17:35

bottles of milk damaging teeth

competitionwinningCOD · 19/09/2004 17:35

friends of mines ds had to have all his teeth our because of night bottles

edam · 19/09/2004 17:36

Try drinking from a spill-proof cup yourself. MUCH harder to get anything from. Babies have to suck so hard, the liquid is held agains their front teeth and the sugars in milk, or (even worse) in fruit juice bathe their front teeth. Denists do actually see caries caused by this, have some formal name for it but can't remember what. You probably know already that fruit juice is bad as sugary and acidic - dentists advise only giving it from regular cup and only at meal times when saliva washes the sugar away.
Originally heard this from dental health adviser who came to speak to my baby group and gave away bog-standard Tommee Tippee cups to encourage us not to buy spill-proof ones. Since seen lots of posters on MN agree, including one who is a dentist, IIRC. Normal sippy cups do make a mess, but if you just give ds/dd water, not really a problem (unless you decorate your home with silk, I suppose ). And if you do give fruit juice at mealtimes I imagine it doesn't make a huge difference to the amount of mess anyway!

competitionwinningCOD · 19/09/2004 17:38

yes I have never used those sippy cups
they need tolearnt hat pouring cups upside sown makes a mess IMo

Flip

1 2