Getting 11 mo off bottles and onto cups

[Jessicatmagnificat]

My 11mo DD has 2 bottles of milk per day, one at each end of the day. During the day, she sips water from a beaker with a straw. She does not take a huge amount of liquid from the beaker, but enough to reassure me that she is getting what she needs.

I have been advised by my HV that I need to wean her off the 2 bottles that she still has, and give her milk to drink in a cup. However, DD is very attached to these 2 bottles, and I am nervous about giving them up.

I am proposing to just drop the morning one and offer her the milk in her beaker. However, I did try this several weeks ago, and she flatly refused to take any milk. Now I am panicking - if I drop a bottle, will she get enough milk and liquid, and if I am tough and hold out, will she eventually start to accept milk from a beaker?

Any advice gratefully received. Thanks

I would ignore your health visitor.
I don;t think you need to rush to drop those bottles.

Although the received wisdom is 'no bottles by 12 months', I think you will find there is an awful lot of children that are on bottles a lot longer! I think the hvs should concentrate on the kids who have bottles of juice permanently attached to them and not get too worried about those who are drinking milk out of a bottle for about 15/20 mins a day. My dd like yours, was outraged about the idea of having milk out of a cup. She is happy to drink water out of a cup for the rest of the day...just not milk! She currently has 4 ozs in morning in a bottle, and 8ozs in the evening. This is drunk quickly and the bottle is removed straight away. She doesn't have a dummy. I don't think think this is doing her any harm and her speech and eating habits are excellent for her age. (She's 15 months.) I am sure at some point when she understands the concept of being a 'big girl' we will find it easier to get the bottle off her!

OK so the reasons for getting LO off the bottle are

a) Bad for teeth
b) They might drink too much milk and not eat enough food as a result
c) Bad for soft/hard palate formation (I think I read that somewhere or it might just be dummies)

My 13m still has 2 bottles a day and I'm not in a hurry to make him stop because

a) We look after his teeth (all 4.5 of them!) with brushing twice a day, no sweets etc
b) He eats a good diet
c) He won't be having the bottle for years and years
d) He still gets a lot of comfort out of it and BF babies are still getting their sucking comfort at this age
e) He drinks loads of water all day long in a cup and never has juice

and most importantly

f) He won't countenance the idea!

I wouldn't worry too much at the moment.

My 16 month old ds still has an evening bottle of milk as it's a nice snuggly feed and seems to settle him so well, and we always brush his teeth well afterwards. He will drink milk out of a beaker in the morning and afternoon but it did take him a little while to get used to that and to drink the same quantities that he used to take from a bottle, if you see what I mean.

If you keep offering the milk in a beaker, she will probably eventually accept it, but I don't think you need worry about it yet, as the others have said.

Do not rush to take her off the bottles. If she is not taking a lot od liquid in the day I would leave her on the bottle. There is no rush especially if it is only milk she is taking.

I wanted my ds off bottles by 1 year but lay the groundwork a couple of months before that by offering milk from a beaker at one of the day feeds so that if he never took much he had feeds later on to make up for it. He never took much to start with but got used to getting milk out of something other than a bottle. I then swapped the other day feed and finished by doing the breakfast and bedtime ones. He was off bottles by 10 1/2 months. If you do want to start using a beaker for milk then I would do it one feed at a time starting with the morning one. I put milk in ds's cup (avent magic cup) and hand it to him while I sort out breakfast. He takes some then and then finishes it off during breakfast. He gets his bedtime milk from his cow cup - again I fill it and hand it to him and we take him upstairs for stories with his big sister. He will take some in her room and then he finishes off in his room before getting his teeth done and into his grobag.

If you wanted to do it in a way that doesnt involve dropping too much milk then keep the bottles and start giving a small drink of milk from a cup sometimes during the day. Once your lo makes progress in taking the milk from a cup then give the morning milk from the cup too and leave the bedtime one till last. I use a different cup for milk and water so ds knows what he is getting by the cup I give.

p.s. from 1 year they only need the equivalent of 350mls of milk per day (approx 12oz) so it doesnt matter if your lo's intake drops a bit as long as they have other fluids on offer and other sources of the same nutrients.

I worried about this too, but DD is so attached to her two bottles that we still have made the transformation at 17 months. I'm not worried, she drinks plenty of water from a beaker during the day, has her teeth brushed twice a day and eats plenty of food. HVs just like to tick boxes!

haven't

does anyone have a link to a cup with a straw that people use for this age?

tommee tippee do a beaker with a flip up straw. I think Mothercare does one as well. Or you could put a normal bendy straw in a beaker and hold it so your lo can drink from it.

DD 16mths still has 1 bottle in the eve. She loves it, but I am not worried as she will drink out of a cup in the day. Actually, she has actually just started to refuse to drink from her tommee tippee cup if it has the lid on. She likes to drink from an adult type cup. I have always found that she does things when she is ready and I think the bottle will be the same.

I remember trying to get dd to drop her bottles and use a beaker for her milk when she was around 1. She was very very unhappy about this so I gave up and left it til she was about 14 or 15 months or so...then tried her with the tommy tippee 9 months onwards beaker (which someone on MN recommended). Took her a day or two to get used to the idea then she was fine.

my 16 month old has no idea how to use a straw. is that odd?

I dont think so!!

my ds learned to use a straw by pinching his sisters carton of juice!! He put the straw in his mouth and I squeezed the carton a little so the juice went up the straw and that encouraged him to suck. He is a pro at it now (12 months).