Are bottles really that bad?

Both DD and DS are still nursing several times a day and DD nurses before bed. DS gets a 5 oz. bottle of breastmilk before bed. My plan was to stop giving him the bottle of milk at one year and give him the milk in a sippy or straw cup. He does great with water in a cup, but he is absolutely refusing milk in a cup. I'm not sure what to do. Can I keep giving him a bottle? It would only be one bottle a day and he never takes the bottle to bed with him. Some people act like it's horrible for a one year old to have a bottle. Why is it okay for DD to nurse before bed but not okay for DS to have a bottle before bed? The milk is the same. I'm worried that DS will wake up hungry if he doesn't drink any milk. I suppose the pedi will tell us to get rid of bottles at our one year appt. next week.

Currently they nurse at about 4 p.m., eat dinner at 4:45 p.m., and get milk at 6 p.m. before bed. Thoughts?


Thanks!

 

Still on bottles over here. :unknw: We had our 18 month check up today and I asked our pedi about bottles and he wasn't too concerned about it. My girls get 3 bottles/day and they drink it and we brush their teeth afterwards and that's it. I think in the next couple months I will be slowly taking them away but at 12 months I wouldn't worry about it yet.

 

We took ours off all bottles at 11 months. If you really want them off, you can do it.

We never had a problem AND it's MUCH easier for ME!! They'll get the cup thing quickly if they have no choice

 

Their pedi and speech therapist both told me that the issue with bottles is that it "may" affect their speech. The even said no sippies; only the straw type cups. Sippies have the same size spout as a bottle's nipple so it's pretty much the same thing.

I had my boys off bottles at 11 months and transioned from sippies to straw cups at 13 months.

From what I have read, the older they get, the harder it will be to get them off the bottle because they become more attached to it.

If you are concerned, give their pedi a call and see what he/she recommends.

 

I did not have my twosome off the bottles until they were 15-16 months old. At that point, they were getting 3 milk bottles a day and when we decided to drop them, I dropped one a week and replaced it with a sippy cup. Their milk intake did go down at first but once they realized the bottles were gone and not coming back, they started drinking from the sippies better.
I think the philosophy about bottle weaning varies from pediatrician...our pedi ideally wanted them off by 12 months but since she wanted my kids to put weight on and take extra milk, she recommended we wait 3 months. At their 15 month visit, she was happy with their weight and gave us the okay to go for it.
When I was stressing about the bottle transition, my mother gave me this piece of advice, "Just remember no child goes to the kindergarten with a bottle in their mouth...they will move past the bottles."

 

I have been worrying about them not drinking as much whole milk as they do formula and waking in the night. The girls still have a morning and bedtime bottle and Ruby seemingly still gulps it down but Amber is starting to refuse the nighttime. So far they have only ever had water in sippies but i'm hoping to introduce whole milk sometime in the next week, fingers crossed they like it but my two so far are VERY picky with food and drink. By the sounds of it the earlier you do it the easier it is but 12months seems on the early side so i am not going to stress if it all fails miserably. I for one will miss the bedtime bottle, it's the only time the girls slow down enough to give me snuggles lately!!

 

my girls also started refusing milk once it moved out of a bottle into a straw cup, but i wanted to get them off bottles by 18 months and i did. pedi said it's fine if they don't drink milk, as long as they get in 3 servings of calcium per day. so they eat cheese, drink yogurt smoothies, eat yogurt, drink calcium-fortified orange juice (per his suggestion) and just get in calcium other ways. i have discovered a way to sneak milk into them and they do just fine. i take a straw cup and pour 2 of those tiny bottles of strawberry dannon danimals yogurt drink, then fill the rest of it with milk and mix it up and they drink it just fine. like a strawberry milkshake!

 

We stuck with a few bottles a day until 14 months, then slowly dropped them until we got rid of the last bottle by 18 months. If you want to keep giving your son a bottle, then do it! There's no real reason why everyone says that babies need to be done with bottles by one year. It's just an arbitrary line in the sand. Tons of us ignored that line and our kids are doing great.

 

Right now I'm focusing on the transition to whole milk and once we're done with that, we'll work on transitioning to sippies. I'm not sure if I've done things "right" so far though; I've given them sippies off and on since 6 months but they pretty much just play with them, bite down on the spout to make the water or formula spurt out, etc. We just introduced straw sippies and Alex is getting the hang of it but Will just bites on the straw. I might wait a week or two and then go cold turkey to see how they do. I feel like they won't figure it out until they have to, ya know? Until then, it's just a toy because they know they'll get their bottles later.

 

My opinion is that one bottle a day, drunk all in one go with teeth brushed afterwards, will do a child no harm. If you're happy for him to have a bottle then let him have a bottle. As a pp said regular sippies (from a teeth/speech point of view) are really no better than bottles anyway.
Also, in my experience, it's not true that waiting until a child is older will make the transition harder. You should do what you feel is right for you and your son.

 

I've looked for straw sippies that are OK for toddlers under 18 months, but can't find any, that is why we were trying regular sippies.

Do you know where I can find any, or recommend any straw sippies safe for 12 months +? I'm at a loss!

 

i haven't even looked at the age recommendations, but my girls have used every brand of straw sippies since they were 12 months old. after 6 months, we've finally discovered that we like the munchkin brand the most. i don't see why they wouldn't be safe for under 18 months.

 

We were off the bottle at 12 months. And I am a true believer it is easier earlier than later (we did the paci at almost 3 - terrible!) Anyways, have you tried a straw sippy? Mine didn't do well with regular sippies but had no issue with the straw cups.

 

The Munchkin straw sippies that we have say they're for 12m+.

 

I still give 2 bottles a day (first thing in the morning & last thing at night). The rest of the time the girls get milk in straw sippy's. We've used the munchkin ones since they wre 11 months old. It took them a day or 2 to get the hang of it, but then they were fine. We tried the Nuby ones also but the straw is very short & my girls had a lot of trouble, as there wasn't enough straw going into their mouths for them to generate suction. Other people might have had different experiences, but the munchkin worked best for us. I have a few friensds who had their kids on bottles until they were 2, and my SIL only took her daughter's bottle away when she was 3 1/2. I wouldn't recommend waiting that long -it was pretty traumatic for my niece. They told her the Easter Bunny took it in exchange for some eggs. She still remembers, & she is now 11 years old!

 

We do like the Munchkin straw cups a lot. The babies drink water in them all the time. DS is just not crazy about milk in the straw cup. I think we are going to do a night time bottle for 3 more months. Thanks for your thoughts!

 

Still drinking 4 bottles a day here! Sippy's with meals. My two like the Nuby straw cups. Our pedi isn't concerned about us dropping the bottle right now (my two are 13 months) but he would like to see them off the bottle by 18 months. GoodLuck!

 

[quote name='Korey.Kelsey.Ryley's Mommy' date='07 January 2010 - 12:44 PM' timestamp='1262886287' post='1547126']
Still drinking 4 bottles a day here! Sippy's with meals. My two like the Nuby straw cups. Our pedi isn't concerned about us dropping the bottle right now (my two are 13 months) but he would like to see them off the bottle by 18 months. GoodLuck!
[/quote]
My boys are now 19 months and still getting 4 bottles a day. Since they couldn't eat protein (they have multiple food protein intolerances) until a month or so ago, I would never have even thought about taking them off the bottle. I had to push the calories through formula and bottles were the best way. All my boys had their bottle until they were 2. My girls, one was breastfed, the other off the bottle at 15 months. I have one son that is in speech and didn't start speaking until 3. The twins are a bit behind in speech. Maybe it's the bottle, but I'll never really know.

 

Not sure about the speech thing. I mean, think of how bad the pacifier must be for speech?? If the bottle is "bad" then the pacifier is HORRIBLE!!

I think it's more of a mental "let's get this over with" type thing than speech for bottles. Esp if they're not carrying them around w/ them all day long.

I hated bottles so I was stoked to trash them. I wouldn't have thought to keep them up after 12 months. i was counting the minutes.

GL! Totally true that the longer you wait, the harder it is They just get sassier as time goes on..

 

:rotflmbo:

THAT made my day. Thanks, I needed that laugh!
Linda