Which to ditch

[stripygiraffe]

With DD I did what the HV said and ditched the bottles at 1yo. DD was not overly impressed and dramatically reduced her milk intake. However, over a month or so she was back to drinking 9oz morning and night.

Now with DS we did the same and although he settles fine at night and sleeps through (teething notwithstanding) he now drinks NO milk. He gets about 4oz in his cereal and I cook with it when I can. He won't eat raw cheese but I add to many meals.

So... my question is which is the lesser of two evils? He drinks a good amount of milk but from a bottle - worse for teeth. Or ditch the bottles and drink no milk - worse for diet?

Try a cow cup, they worked brilliantly with my DS when moving off bottles. Will try to get you a link when not on my phone

Hi thanks. I have one of them. Worked a treat with DD. DS refuses to play ball

Have you tried yogurt, or smoothies? Mine liked drinking from straws when they started on the cup, and they liked smoothies with a thicker style straw. I wasn't pushed about milk intake as long as they were getting calcium elsewhere, and gave them water (no juice).

They don't actually need a huge amount of milk at 1 year plus. What is important is that they get sufficient daily calcium . If they were getting all this from milk they'd need around 11-12oz (approx 300-350ml) from ages 1-3 years. This used to all be helpfully set out on the food Standards Agency Eatwell Website, but since the Govt abolished that loads of the really helpful info has gone .

Other sources of calcium are hard cheese, sesame seeds (as in hummous), yogurt, some veg. There's a table here that shows how much calcium different foods contain.

It is entirely possible for a toddler to get all their calcium from food sources other than milk and just drink water .

DS2 still has an 8oz bottle a night and he's 2. Managed to stop for a bit, then he was ill and it was the only thing that would settle it. Don't think 1 bottle a day is going to be a major problem, esp as a friend said her DS (now 4) didn't give up his evening bottle till 2 and a half.

DS is 1 next week. I started to give him his mid morning milk in a beaker, but he only has about 1oz if not drinking from the bottle. He is happy as long as I give him a snack, so he usually has some fromage frais or yoghurt. I'm not planning on ditching the bedtime bottle though. I believe the problem is that drinking from a bottle is very bad for their teeth, but if you brush their teeth before bed than it's fine.