has anyone had any lucky going straight from boob to cup?

[valbona]

DD is coming up to 4 months and is totally uninterested in drinking from a bottle. had always assumed BFing was going to be the hard bit not the bottle ... quite keen to start winding up BFing after 6 months - need to really cos of work.

so ... how early do you reckon I could start trying to get her interested in a cup and what sort of cup would you recommend?

that's all really! thanks in advance for any thoughts and experiences

I never got either of mine to take a bottle; DS never took milk out of anything but my breast (and still doesn't drink any milk 11 years later), but with DD, I tried using Avent soft-spout cups (the ones with soft white spouts - this was 7 years ago, so they may have changed) for occasional expressed feeds from about 4 months and gradually progressed to firmer spouts. It just needs some persistence, and sometimes helps if it is someone other than you doing the feeding.

I never bottle fed. I still bfeed now (dd is 3) but introduced a cup from 6/7 months. I just gave it to her with some water in it and she drank. Just a cheap sippy cup.

Ds1 rejected the bottle after we tried to feed him formula from it - but we still needed to top up with ebm. We used a softcup when he was tiny and soon after moved onto a regular cup - not even a sippy cup (he never got on with those) just a normal glass (thick glass though).

Both mine have but I bf till 9 months and then added a cup for a feed.

thanks everyone - what's a sippy cup exactly? haven't quite figured out the difference between that and other cups

Take a look here for more info and here for a great cup.

These cups are great too, especially good if you are going out.

YES! I started DD on a cup at 6 months with meals, for ages she just tipped it down the side of the highchair. She's now 36 weeks and drinking well out of it
I am proud! She hasn't ever had a bottle, and has to feed herself the cup, so not sure how well that'll work with milk...we'll see

both mine bf til over a year but by time i went back to work at about 9m they were only having morning and evening feeds. Both went to cups from boob but in parallel - when i started weaning at around 51/2-6m with both just introduced the tommee tippee first cups with every meal and they gradually started drinking out of them, and took them out with me with water etc - all seemed to happen very easily and organically, just did food/drink in parallel with boobs. They would often have milk from the cup with evening meal too so i dont see why you cant go staright to cup for the main milk feed - save you all that faffing with bottle too. good luck.

thanks everyone - and thanks for tips on which cups! all sounds promising

Ds is 16wks and in 7 weeks I am going to work for 2 days and then I break up for the teaching summer hols. Have ebf from the beginning and cant quite see the point in trying a bottle at this stage. Ds will be 23wks then and dh having him for those two days. Would I be better using a soft spout cup?