Getting rid of bottles and drinking milk from a cup

[NichyNoo]

DS is two years old and drinks a bottle of milk (240ml) in the morning before breakfast and a bottle (240ml) before bed. We want to move from bottles to drinking milk out of a cup as I realise that bottles are not good for his teeth.

For the past week we have started giving him his morning milk out of a cup. As soon as he wakes up he calls for milk as he loves it. But then has been having a major tantrum when he sees me pour milk into a cup and not his bottle. And I mean a major tantrum.

We have been cajoling and bribing him to at least have a few sips from the cup but he would rather forego his beloved milk than drink it out of a cup. We bought him a 'special' cup for the milk but he refused to use it so now we put it in his water cups (which he has been drinking from for months) but he still isn't happy.

I am dreading what will happen when we get rid of the nightime bottle and present his milk in a cup. I don't want to deal with tantrums before bed and then sleepless nights due to an empty tummy. Does anyone have any advice please? Thank you!

none sorry but watching with interest, ds 2 is 2 in December and I have been wondering. If we were to give him a cup now it would just end up everywhere!

If you're using a sippy cup, then your DS is like mine, and the issue was the lack of speed in the flow IYSWIM.

We bought a Doidy cup which allows him to get more milk, and he's much happier; but not entirely as we enforce that he can only use it at the table. It also means that his "night" bottle was dropped entirely - it's a tea time drink now, then water at night.

DD was the same age when I finally got rid of hers. We were staying with my DSis and I just put them in the bin whilst explaining to DD that she was a big girl now and didn't need a bottle which is for babies.

When we came home and she knew her bottles had been left behind and that she couldn't have them any more.

The only unforeseen problem I had was that for quite a long time after that she refused to drink milk at all. I gave up pushing it because she's a porridge and cheese monster so I knew she was getting plenty of calcium elsewhere.

She sometimes has milk from a cup now and then but not a huge amount and certainly not every day. She doesn't miss her bedtime milk at all.

Oh, and he has replaced his lunch milk with a fromage frais in a sucky pouch like this

Just to mention....the flow of milk isn't an isuse as the cup we use is an open beaker. I thought about buying a sippy cup just for milk as middle ground but would that not have the same issues for teeth (i.e. sucking the milk through front teeth)?

Ooooh. Don't know then It certainly was flow for DS.

We use the hard lidded cups in the house in the living room (the ones with the spouts that fold away) and tend to have the sucky straw beakers when we're out to prevent spills on either DS/bags/seats etc and they do say for 18-36m etc. I'm only brave enough to have an open beaker at the table - although we are trialing the Oxo cup which seems to be reasonably successful...

However, I'm off to the dentist with DS today, so will ask about this!

He won't wake up because he's got an empty tummy, in fact you'll probably find that he eats more at supper if he's not having milk in the evening. Morning and evening milk certainly isn't nutritionally necessary after 1 year so I wouldn't worry if he goes off milk for a while. You can give him milk in other forms if you're worried about it (custard, rice pudding, cheese sauce on pasta, porridge etc).

Mothers spend far to much time worrying about what our children should and should not be doing. All four of my children enjoyed having milk in their bottles before bedtime and in the morning until they did not want the milk anymore. They were never allowed to have any sugary drinks in a bottle though. Allowing a child to drink milk from a bottle does not mean that they will never use a cup. There is far to much pressure on parents, usually from other parents etc etc, as to what they should be doing with their children. Go with your womanly instincts. Happy Mummy=Happy child and vice versa.

Dawny, milk is very sugary and it is bad for their teeth to drink it from a bottle after a certain age. On occasion 'womanly instinct' is trumped by fact.

at the risk of a lot of tutting and expressions of horror----my ds is 4 and going to school next week and still has his milk in a bottle in the morning. his teeth are fine (she adds hoping to soften the blow of being flamed.............)