7m old- can I go straight to sippy cup?

[supollard]

So. Third baby, EBF until we started weaning and still feeding 3/4 times per day and at any night time wake ups. Eating pretty well, drinks small amounts from a sippy cup with meals and between feeds if needed. Flat out not interested in a bottle.

My other two babies I made sure they would drink from a bottle and by this stage their bedtime feed was from a bottle and I stopped bf altogether by about 8 months old.

My question is, with some days at work and a couple of events coming up soon, I’m thinking I should just skip the bottle part and work on her being able eat enough and drink from a sippy cup while I’m not around? And not try to get her drinking from a bottle at all? Is this what people do?! If I wanted to not do the bedtime feed would a drink from a cup suffice? This Abby is so attached to bfing that I can’t work out how I’ll actually stop and I would like to be able to share the load with my husband a bit more!!

I don't see any issue in this, esp if she's not keen on the bottle! Just make sure she's taking on plenty of fluids x

I wouldn't introduce a bottle at that age unless I had no other choice, I would go straight for a 360 cup, a doidy or a sippy cup.

Three kids, none ever had a bottle. Tried with first on Drs advice as he'd got sickness bug at 8 weeks and was advised to give water but he wouldn't take it so gave up and offered breast. All three used tomie tippee sippie cups from 3 months for watered down fruit juice/water and eventually follow on milk/cows milk.

Forgot to say, stopped breast feeding at 10-11 months with all, much easier before they are 1 year old, they forget about it in a few days 💐😊

Totally fine!

I got ds9 months off several nightly bfs in just 3 nights!! Sent dh in with a cup of milk. Then a cup of water. Third night ds slept 7til 7!! And that was it done!
Was truly life changing.

@Mossstitch you gave 3m old babies watered down fruit juice!? Why??

@MolliciousIntent I'm old and it wasn't the norm then to keep babies (80/90s) on milk only until 6months old! In fact there is no way I could have kept my first on milk only til then, he was helping himself to food long before that and on three real meals a day by then. (home made cauliflower cheese, roast dinners pureed by hand in a moulinex grinder) I've got photos of him grabbing someone's biscuit off them at 4 months old and gnawing on a whole banana. For some reason he didn't like milk so watered down organic apple juice with evian water was what he would drink and I thought I was doing the best for him at the time, I was more concerned with getting enough fluids in him! All three are fit and healthy 6 foot 30 somethings with perfect teeth as no bottles or dummies🤷 times and recommendations change, you just do the best you know how for your children at the time.

I used the Avent feeding system for ds who was ff & was able to gradually move on to their drinks bottles & beakers as he got older but he still had a bottle morning & evening. The Avent system means you can mix & match ordinary feeding bottles with the tops for older children.

Neither of mine had bottles, sippy cups from about 6 months. Still had a bedtime breast feed till 11 months.

These replies are all really reassuring, thank you!

Currently she doesn’t drink loads from her sippy cups, and we haven’t had any luck with milk of any kind in any cup or bottle at all- but will persevere with the cup rather than confusing the issue with attempting bottles too!

@Littlebirdyouaresosweet this is good to hear too. With our first two, we did some sleep training for one and the other was a very good sleeper naturally. Our daughter is much more like the one we did sleep training with but I am just not up for doing it, neither of us are! But when she is a couple of months older I will defo try what you suggest. Thanks!

I went back to work at 7 months. DS wouldn't drink from a bottle so he drank from a Doidy cup for the first couple of months. Then he switched to a tommey tippee free flow cup.

Sippy cups and cups with no-spill valves are too similar to bottles. Get a Doidy cup

Neither of my boys had bottles. They went straight to an open cup.

We started at 6 months with water for practice.

With my first born , I was going to switch to a sippy cup at 12 months ( when I went back to work ) but our health visitor suggested skipping it all together as my first born was so good with the cup . And that’s exactly what we did . I gave my son expressed milk from the cup from about 9 months onwards too ( when I was doing some keeping in touch days with work/ out for the day).

It worked so well for us that I did the same with our second born as well .

DS3 went straight to an open cup too. I used little shot glasses from ikea, which are the perfect size for tiny hands to learn to pick up.