Moving on from bottles

[HarryHarryHarry]

My son is 2.5 and he absolutely refuses to drink milk from anything but a baby bottle (even though he drinks water from a cup with no problems). He loves his milk but would rather just go without than drink it from a cup.

I’m well aware that he should have moved on to drinking from a cup by now.

I don’t have any reason to be worried about his teeth - no sign of decay - or his speech - but I feel like we really need to stop with the bottles now.

This week we have been trying him with sippy cups again.

I was just wondering if anybody had any advice about how to deal with this.

He doesn’t need to drink milk. He needs 350 mg of calcium a day and this can come from cheese yoghurts and fortified bread.

Following as my son is the same, he loves his bottles

Could you just cut it out? Or is he using the bottle before bed to smooth him etc. Like the previous poster said he doesn't actually need a bottle/cup of milk as he'll probably get enough calcium from cereal and milk/yogurts etc. Bottle are meant to be as for their teeth aren't they so it's maybe worth trying to get him off them but then I've known older children still having a bottle so maybe don't stress too much x

I had to go cold Turkey on the bottles in the end and just pretended that I couldn’t find them; by that age if they don’t drink milk it doesn’t really matter. We had about 3-4 days of tantrums at bedtime about it and refusal to drink from other cups but then she seemed to accept it and would drink milk from a toddler cup.

I agree he does not need to drink milk. My daughter is 2 in March and we stopped giving milk this month. She tends to have yoghurt, cheese, and cereal with milk. All the best as not easy changing a routine.

Meant last month. Can't believe it's February

I'd go cold turkey on the bottles. He can have milk in a cup or no milk - his choice. The bottles would be in the recycling bin though!

My two were the same.... they’d both gag if given milk in a cup! In a bottle they’d neck it!

So,we gave up and they had cereal/yogurts etc.

They are 12 and 10 now and both hate milk as do I!