When to switch from formula to cow's milk and giving up the bottle

[oiseau]

DS will be one in two weeks. At the moment he has two 8 oz bottles of SMA gold a day (morning and before bed). I have read a few places that you are supposed to start thinking about getting them off the bottle at about 1 year old. I don't think DS would mind particularly but I enjoy giving him his bottles and like those cuddles, also I don't think he would drink enough out a beaker to get his 12oz quota.

I'd be interested to hear how others went about it and if there is any wisdom to do it earlier rather than later?

Also when should I stop the formula and do I just go cold turkey?

I have had four kids, either breast fed or mixed fed. The breast fed ones moved to a bottle when I stopped b/f. It is tricky getting them to give up the bottle as mine all seemed to drain a bottle to the end but given the same milk in a cup would only have some. For that reason, I kept the bottle first thing in the morning and last thing at night until they were about 2 years old. All other drinks in a cup to give them practice. As for formula or cows milk, I think you can continue with the formula if you want but personally I found it a bind making up the milk (compared to just pouring some out from a carton!) and swapped over to cows milk as soon as they were one (in one case, on their actual birthday). They seemed to notice the difference in taste, but not enough to not drink it although I would recommend heating it if your baby is used to warm formula.
Sorry I don't know any clever answers as to whether it is better to make these changes earlier or later, but I hope my experience has helped. Just do what works for you is my motto.

I did it gradually - kept the bottle, but swapped from using a teat to using a spout on the bottle and then the plan was to go onto a cup. However neither of my DSs were overly keen on milk so once the 'comfort' factor went from the night time feed they pretty much stopped having it!

You can tyr just giving the cows milk - if he takes it good and well. If not, then start mixing it with the formula eg 6oz formula, 2 oz milk and keep increasing the amounts of cows milk while reducing the formula.
If you are both happy with the bottle feeds then carry on just now.
Don't worry if he doesn't ever like cow's milk, he can get his quota in foods. 3 out of 4 of my children didn't like cows milk so didn't have any once they stopped breastfeeding.

We started switching DS to cows milk when he turned one but it was a gradual process. Luckily, he'll drink anything so that wasn't an issue but I still found the formula more convenient when we were going out. So DS had both for a while and then we just phased out the formula.

He's still taking a bottle at 20 months but we're about to start phasing that out too and giving him his milk in a cup. I've bought a 'special' cup that's bright blue and will be just for his milk rather than putting it in the cups he uses for water, juice, etc.

Should also add that we recently went on a long-haul flight and I packed some boxes of SMA Progress for the journey. You can use it up until age two. Again, this was just for convenience and it worked well. Coming back I had to ask the flight attendant for some milk and it was such a hassle as they wanted to pour it from a carton that was sitting on the side for who knows how long. Had to ask them to open a fresh one which was awkward.

Thanks for your messages - I think I will try him first with Cows milk in his bottle and see what happens. If he doesn't like it I will do what you suggest Mears and mix the two. I'll deal with the bottle thing in a bit because for the moment we both enjoy it!