help, baby wont drink from beaker/bottle (15 months old)

[simba27]

Hi
Sorry in advance for the long message and its probably been covered before but am new here so bear with me...

My daughter is just over 15 months old. She was exclusively breast fed up to 15 months. When she was 6 or 8 weeks old, I started expressing milk into a bottle and gave that to her for her night (dream) feed but still breastfed the other feeds. I stopped the expressed milk night feed when she was about 8 or 9 months old because I reduced her feeds in favour of more solids and hence expressing became harder (did not make as much milk). I still continued with 3 and then 2 breast feeds a day until last week when I stopped completely. I have tried to feed her cow's milk using a beaker (soft spout) and a bottle as well but she pushes it away. She's been drinking water from a beaker for months now with no problems but will refuse the milk everytime (even though she used to take a bottle of expressed milk for so many months before). She absolutely loves milk, and even though she will refuse a beaker, she will lap it up if spoonfed! I try every morning and evening with a beaker with no luck and have even tried not spoonfeeding if she refuses the beaker so that she does not get into a bad habit. She has a lot of yoghurt everyday and some cheese. I don't really know what to do, she does love milk and I don't want her to stop having it but it seems the only way she'll drink it is if I spoonfeed her....
Does it get better...??!!
Any help at all would be much appreciated. Thanks
Bel

My dd2 won't either. My dd1 started using beakers and cups at 9 months and I never gave it a second thought but dd2 is having none of it. She is 2 years and two months now. She will drink out od a bottle and out of an open cup only. I have tried lots of different kinds of cups and I even put newborn teats on her bottles to makee it more difficult!

I feel as if I have done all I can do and like you I don't want her to stop drinking milk. My friends ds did this when she took his bottles and he is 5 now and he still won't drink milk.

I don't let my dd drink out of a baby bottle when we are out of the house. But I have to admit that part of the reason for taht is I don't want to look stupid.

Sorry that I can't be much help. You are not alone though.

I stopped bf my ds, 11.5 months, last week. He drinks water from a tommy tippee cup but only drinks bits of milk. and until today only from an open cup (doidy or tt without lid) and (positively weird from a bf baby)he likes his cowsmilk straight from the fridge .

tonight I took a bit of warm milk in a tippee cup (with lid, did not want wet jimjams)upstairs for the bedtime story. He only had a little bit but seemed to enjoy it.

To be honest he eats 3 pots of fromage frais and a pot of yogurt a day, plus milk in cereal, plus cheese in food..he gets his calcium. and because he eats fish, meat, weetabix, green veg etc he gets calcium and iron from other sources too.

I would not worry too much. It does not all depend on milk. And I am sure it will get better.

My dd hasn't had a drop of milk since stopping BF at the age of 2, she's now 5. I tried all sorts of tricks which did work with my ds (he drinks about 1/2 cup a day), but she's got a very stubborn personality and point blank refuses to touch the stuff not even on cereal.
She loves cheese and has loads of that in a day + she also used to have a 2 pots of fromage frais a day, but that has dwindled now due to being in full time school.
I wouldn't worry too much about it calcium can be obtained from other sources too,

No advice but just wanted to say going through a silmilar thing here too! Ds is 17 months and won't drink cows milk from a cup/bottle but will take it from a spoon!! Funny little things aren't they?! Like the others say, as long as they have plenty of cheese/yogurt etc should be fine not drinking any milk. I'm down to 1 breast feed a day and have given up trying to get ds to drink cows milk. As long as he has it in his cereal and food he'll be fine.

Watching this with interest, as DS (16mo) also doesn't seem interested in cows milk - he's still bf morning and evening, so I'm not too worried about his milk intake, but would like him to take cows milk for later on. He's fine with milk sauces (eg cauliflower cheese etc) and fromage frais/yogurt, but doesn't seem to like custard and won't drink milk from cup. I think I might try warming it up in case that's why...

However I was thinking of making him a milk pudding to see if that would work, and remembered making one in the past with cornflour which was dead easy - just searched, and found this, if it's any help:
somethingfromanything.wordpress.com/2008/02/04/what-to-do-with-lots-of-milk/

Thanks to everyone for all the advice. I tried again today to feed her from a beaker but she refused and ended up spoon feeding it! I've even tried not being present and letting my husband give her the milk in case she associates me with breast milk but it does not make a difference. She seems to take milk as food but not a drink! Anyway, I will try some of the things suggested and let you know if they work. Thanks.