What age do most dc's stop having any milk from a bottle? And at what age would you start getting judgey about it?

[mangosTrickyrice]

Judgey about someone else's kid with a bottle, I mean?

I've just realised I have no idea what would be considered a normal range for giving up bottles.

It can retard a child's speech development if they keep using a bottle, children need to use cups (not free-flow ones) to develop the right muscles to help their speech.

Varied for my children. They stopped having milk in a bottle at...
ds1 was about 3
ds2 was 5.5 - at the end of reception year. It was a source of great comfort for him.
dd1 was 3.5
dd2 was 18 months

They only ever had milk in a bottle so I wasn't bothered how long it took them.

and most children that use bottles ALSO use a cup, my little one does, for water during the day, but he has his milk from a bottle.

my elder ones had water from a cup and breast milk from me, i see no difference between the two tbh.

and they all talk fine.

the little one also sucks his thumb, should i stop him doing that as well?

Bessie123 - that's quite amusing as ds2 was, and still is, by far the most articulate of my children!! He spoke the clearest and the earliest.

I was quite judgey about this before I had children.

DS1 gave up his bottle at around 2.6. He was mix-fed and he gave up breastfeeding around the same time, although he probably had his last breastfeed at around 2.9 or so. I don't know if it is a coincidence or not but he decided he wasn't going to wear nappies, day or night, at the same time.

I'm a big believer in muddling along and helping children make their own decisions about when they do things. So I carried on breastfeeding or as long as he wanted it, and carried on feeding him to sleep for as long as he wanted. I wasn't bothered at all about the 1 or 2 bottles he had at various times of the day because I knew at some point he'd stop.

There is nothing wrong with his speech, either. In fact he doesn't stop talking.

Dd drinks everything but milk from a cup, and speaks clearly in 3 languages, so I don't think it's impeding her development.

4madboys - yes, it looks stupid

what thumb sucking, he is 18mths old ffs, none of my others ever did it, but they essentially used my breast as a dummy, does that look stupid as well.

btw do you actually KNOW what the word stupid means?

it means dim witted and unintelligent, something that my son definitely is not.

he mainly only does it if he has hurt himself of when he goes to sleep, it calms and soothes him, what is wrong in that? and imo it doesnt look stupid at all, it looks cute, i have a pic of him sucking his thumb on my facebook page as it looks so cute and i have LOADS of replies all saying the same, that he looks adorable.

This thread is quite amusing. It is similar to one a couple of years ago about when to stop breastfeeding (gasp) and someone drew parallels with toilet training. I said something like it was probably time to stop waiting till the child was ready if he was 6 and still wearing nappies (I had tried to find an appropriately advanced age to make a point) then someone posted that it is so unfair to force children and that her ds was still in nappies at 6, there is nothing wrong with it, he is not ready to try using the loo instead.

I'm sure all your children are perfect (mine certainly is).

4madboys - I was joking, chill out.

Although I do think that thumb sucking can make someone look dim witted and unintelligent.

when they have bottles past 1 yo, is it just regular cows milk in it or formula?

well maybe if you were joking then you should have put a to make it look like that.

tbh i still cant see how a toddler sucking their thumb can make them look dim witted and unintelligent

woozlet, i think it depends on the child, my ds4 has formula, the infant hipp first stage one as he seems happy on that, and i have an allergy to milk and am wary of letting my boys drink cows milk on its own.

obviously i KNOW that formula is made from cows milk, but the hipp is organic and obviously has vitamins and minerals added so i feel it is better for him, in the same way that my elder three all had breastmilk until they were 3yrs and never drank cows milk either

Cow's milk for us. Dd was ebf up to about 9 or 10 months, then mix fed with formula till a year, then swapped over to cow's milk for bottles. Stopped bf at about 19 months but she's carried on with bottles.

My dd3 (2.1) has a bottle of warm cows milk to settle her to sleep at night, if she wakes up for more we give her water as if not she would happily drink 3 whole bottles of milk each night.

The thing is with your example bessy123 is that if the 6 year old was wearing nappies at night, would that be that big a deal? Because most 'older' kids that have bottles usually have them at night or when they need comfort, so the speech development is surely not an issue.

hazeyjane - you're probably right about the speech development. My point about the 6 year old is that sometimes a child has to come out of his comfort zone because it is time to move forward. For example, I really do think that in the absence of any developmental or other problems, a child should really be out of nappies by the age of 6. Having said that, I still had my security blanket at age 30.

i woudl start thinking is was unusual to have a bottle in public after about the age of 5 years

although i have freqeuntly seen teenagers and even adults drinkning out of bottles

Breastfed babies would be breastfed past one, so why should bottle fed babies be shoved onto cups, especially at bedtime, before they are ready? And really, what is the point of judging? DS is 12mo and has all his bedtime feeds in a bottle, in the day it varies. He really doesn't like having milk from a cup, what am I supposed to do? And what harm is it doing him?

Mine never had them only because they were bf and then went onto cups at around 6 months for water etc and then eventually for cows milk.

But whats to get judgey about? Who really cares what other people are doing?

I am a bit squeamish about food as comfort though - not judgey, just squeamish...

Oh lordy. I have too many other things to do than to start analysing my judgements, seeker!

My general rule with children is: if it's good enough for Gran, it's good enough for me.