Still on Bottles

So, there have been a lot of posts lately about getting rid of bottles. My girls are 16 months and still get 3 bottles/day. One after breakfast, one before nap and one before bed. They take about 20oz/day of milk and they sit and drink their bottle and then hand it to me when they are done.

They don't run around with bottles in their mouths and we brush their teeth after the bedtime bottle. Is this a problem? I really didn't think so until I saw all these posts about getting rid of bottles at 12-13 months. Anyone else still on bottles with no plans to get rid of them yet???

 

most books and peds will tell you to get rid of them by 18 months..... one of mine still takes one before his nap, and asks for one anytime he's upset, if that makes you feel any better!

, jl

 

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The big things about bottles are generally:
Ttooth decay/ bottle mouth
Harder to take away as children age. 12 months is often sighted as the "easiest" time for both kids/parents to discontinue bottle use.
The longer you wait, it becomes more difficult because the bottle becomes a "security bottle".

At 16 months I would definitely encourage you to begin the weaning process.

 

Is there a reason you want them to be on bottles? That is the part that always confuses me. I feel like it's more the parent who cares about it than the child.

We took ours off of them at 11 months because they were ready for cups and it's sooooooooooo much easier when they are no longer on the bottles.. I couldn't WAIT to get them GONE!

The longer you wait, the harder and more painful it will be to remove them from their lives.

It's really no big deal to take them away at 12 months and I cannot imagine how hard it would be to wait and do it at 15 or 16 months.

I encourage you to start the weaning process too. Good luck!

 

Hi,
Mine are 14.5 months old and we are still mostly on bottles. I'm replacing their lunch bottle this week. My DD can drink out of the straw cups, but my son has trouble with the sippy cups. I help him by tilting it to the correct position. When he gets a little more proficient, I want to get rid of the other bottles. I thought about starting it sooner but we were doing sleep training at 12-13 months and I was exhausted. I worry about my DS not drinking enough, but he is a good eater so I think he will be fine. GL!

 

We began the weaning process at 15 to 16 months and I can tell you for my two, the transition was very easy (easier then I expected it to be). We were on three bottles a day and I took a bottle away a week. I started with the bottle I thought they'd miss the least (the afternoon nap one), the following week was the morning one and the week after that was bedtime. Their milk intake went down for a couple of days after each transition but once they were completely off bottles, they did really well with it. Good luck to you when you decide to transition!

 

I know there are ALWAYS exceptions. But what I meant by the part you quoted was in comparison to what I would have gone thru with MY kids at that age, it was a PIECE OF CAKE to do it at 11 months instead. It would be impossible to compare my kids to anyone elses etc but my pt is.. given your OWN children, doing it at 12 months vs. 16 would be easier since they are younger. That is probably common knowledge. Hope that makes sense. sorry if it was confusing. I think that is a huge part of why it is recommended that you switch at that pt. Clearly I have no way of knowing how hard it was for anyone else, only myself which is what I was talking about.

Hopefully that makes more sense

 

Thanks for the replies. I guess it's time to start thinking about getting rid of them....

Can you still get bottle mouth decay from just drinking the bottle quickly then putting it away. I though it was bad only if they constantly were sucking on the bottle all day and the milk just sat on the teeth??

 

No worries, I knew what you were saying. I just wanted the OP to see that it can be done at 15-16 months, I know our pediatrician recommended they be off the bottle by 12 months but because my kiddos were low weight at 12 months, she wanted us to wait until our next visit at 15 months and when she was happy with their weight, we went for the change.

 

I am not sure, are they laying down drinking the bottle? I have heard it happening when kids go to sleep with a bottle of milk/juice in their mouth but I am not sure. I would think if it's just during your regular routine during the day and you are brushing their teeth at night (and morning) then they should be okay :unsure:

 

I am always slow to move on to new things. That said, at 17.5 months, I was still using bottles 3 times a day for Evan. I was exhausted one day and actually was able to lay down and take a nap while dh & buddy took care of the kids and he couldn't find one of the 2 bottles I had, so he used a sippy cup. We never looked back. It wasn't hard, it was just me who needed a swift kick to get it done! Good luck. With my other two, it wasn't a big deal because I breastfed... we never used bottles so transitioning them was not a big deal.. they were on sippy's of water before I weaned them at 25.5 months.

 

My ped said to throw away all bottles and pacis at 12 months or we'd never get rid of them. I love him, but he's very old-school, so I take his advice with a grain of salt. We eliminated the last of the bottles (Jack's night-time bottle; he weaned early) at 13 months.

 

:wavey: We are/were still on bottles at that age.
None of my families bothered with switching milk to sippy cups that young, so the milk the kids had was in bottles. By 16 months they were no longer having the 3rd bottle but the twins still got (and Eleanor still gets) a bottle first thing in the morning and last thing at night (teeth brushed after). I think that the twins dropped the morning bottle sometime between 18 months and 2 years, can't remember exact ages. I can tell you that with the evening bottle Naomi and Luke were nearly 3 and Alyssa and Bryony were 3 and 4 months before they switched to sippy cups. N & L gave up the bedtime drink of milk after about 9 months of having it in sippies but A & B still have their evening milk now.

I-obviously-don't think there's a problem with it, as long as you're sensible about it (like you said no running around/lying down with bottles, brush teeth after etc) and it's not affecting their solid food intake. The only thing I might do with yours is either cut out the pre-nap bottle or brush their teeth after that as well because I'd be uncomfortable with them going straight to bed after drinking a full bottle.

I also don't agree that leaving a transition later will make it harder. I think older toddlers can sometimes better understand/accept change and so transition easier than younger toddlers.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do!

 

Take it from someone who took bottles away at 12 months but waited to take the paci away from her DD until almost age 3. It is WAY, WAY easier to do it when they are younger versus older. Our pedi recommended 12 months, so I went with that. It was a breeze, they had no issue with it at all.

Paci, well that was a different story.

Pedi recommended just 15-20 ounces of milk a day at a year. The rest of their nutrition should be from food.

 

I don't know if there's a big physical/developmental reason to get them off. I was just soooooo ready to be done with them at a year!

Pacis, we still have. I thought I wouldn't even think about getting rid of them until 2 for naps and bedtime, but I think they might be ready now, and I may take advantage of the window of readiness.

FWIW, getting rid of bottles was a piece of cake for us!

 

I agree with most of what the others said. Our pedi recommended stopping before 18 months; at that time 15 months the boys were already off bottles.

My old dentist was saying that bottle mouth is just as much as a problem with sippy cups because like you said many kids are running around all day drinking milk and juice off and on or they fall asleep. I'd still be a little concerned about tooth decay because of the way bottle feeding works. When kids get bottles, they usually don't get anything else to wash or rinse it out of their mouths. It might be different if they were getting water in the bottles. Plus, the other potential problem is what twinnanny mentioned. If they get too many bottles of milk or formula, they don't sometimes don't eat enough table food.

I can tell you from first hand experience it's not as hard as you might think. Assuming they are already taking milk and water out of sippy cups, you can transition them pretty quick.

 

You know mine never took to those sippy cups. I tried several varieties of them, but none worked. They have been drinking out of straw cup since about 8 months old. I'm not sure if you have tried it, but he may have no trouble with the straw cups.

 

I get why some people keep them if it's a comfort thing, but I really don't quite get keeping the bottles as just a means to drink milk. Just put the milk in a sippy cup. Transition done. Give them the cup at mealtimes. There's really no "need" to drink an entire bottle/cup of milk before breakfast or before bed. I've ditched the bottles at 13 months for all the kids and it was fine.

 

Mine are off bottles for going on 2weeks now I was just ready to be done with them bc they were more of a struggle to feed the bottles to than to give them a sippy of milk. They transitioned like they never knew what a bottle was I agree with PP that it is not necessary to drink an entire bottle of milk at anytime. Mine drink 20oz on a good day and 10oz on a bad day....but they eat plenty of yogurt and cheese to make up for it

 

what should i do in my case?

i'm doing 2 bottles a day. i recently dropped the afternoon bottle.

DD never holds her bottles. she would never miss any bottle or any sip of milk if i never gave it to her again. she never chooses to drink milk out of a sippy/straw cup. ever. she'll have a bit of smoothy, and she's drink water with a splash of juice. she'll even drink water.

every single oz of milk that i get in her with the bottle is sort of a fight. she'll never drink 10 or 20oz a day on her own. she doesn't really make up for it with food either. she just isn't in love with dairy.

what should i do?

DS would probably drink between 8 and 20oz of milk on his own if i took bottles away.

 

Your DD might not be a big fan of dairy, some kids just aren't. My stepfather HATES milk with a passion and from what he says, he always has since childhood. You might want to try Carnation Instant Breakfast or a little bit of flavored syrup in milk to see if she will drink more or not.

 

With my older 2 girls I never tried taking them off a bottle until right before they turned 2. The transistion was very easy and simple. They never had any problems and don't have any teeth problems. They are almost 8 and 6 now and have no decay and haven't had any cavities. As for the twins I will do the same. They are on 3 bottles a day with sippies or straw cups in between. Why try to make them grow up to soon.

 

In my opinion sippy cups ARE bottles !!! Looks similar, nipple on some of them... My girls are not bottle loving babies, we just have kept them on them for their first in the morning drink because it is easier to measure how much they drink. Similar to the pp, my one daughter was never a big drinker or eatter for that matter and took a long time to hold her cup and then used those bottle holders. One Physical Therapist thought it might be because it was too tiring for her. They are still on part formula to get some extra calories into them, not easy to measure with a sippy cup. I give them various types of sippy cups which they love the variety and let them use cups where I can. I will likely just transition right to a cup for milk. I like to keep sippy cups for water only. Oh for calcium mine eat lots of yogurt they especially love the natural stuff that has little sugar in it -- it tastes awful but they love it.

Heather

 

Just wanted to chime in that before we transitioned (we just did it at 12 months with no real issues but kept the morning bottle for two weeks after that to make sure they were getting enough milk as they got used to all sippies) I was having a hard time getting them to eat their meals. Once we gave them sippy cups and let them regulate how much they were taking (with bottles they would just suck it all down as was the habit) they started eating breakfast, lunch and dinner MUCH better. They still get plenty of milk throughout the day, but now are getting more of the necessary vitamins and nutrients through fruits and veggies and proteins that they eat which they weren't doing so well with when they were getting bottles! Good luck, I was stressed about making the switch and it turned out to be super easy - the kids just did not even really care and actually seemed to like the sippy cups better because we gave them cold milk in the bottles and it was making their hands cold!