Please share your 'transition to milk' process

I am starting to think about transitioning my boys to milk and am wondering what worked best for all of you.

Our current schedule is this:
Between 7-8am - Wake up and 6-8 oz bottle
9:00 or 9:30 - oatmeal cereal w/ fruit, dry cheerios after they finish their cereal
10ish - nap
11:30 or 12:00 - 6 oz bottle (already used a couple of ounces in cereal)
1:30 - snack (usually yogurt, banana, some other fruit, or cheerios)
2:30 or 3:00 - 6-8 oz bottle
3:00 - nap
5:00 - dinner (usually 6-7 oz of meat/veggies and sometimes cheerios at the end)
6:30 - bath
7:00 - 6-8 oz bottle and read
7:30 - bed

I am considering replacing the noon-ish bottle with milk as a start. If that goes well, then maybe replace the 2:30 bottle also. Or, should I eliminate a bottle entirely and also replace one with milk (assuming I'd need to increase solids to compensate)? I'd love to get rid of a bottle, but don't want to rush it.
Alternatively, I am wondering if I should get them on more of a breakfast-lunch-dinner schedule before I transition to milk? As you can see, the majority of their nutrition still comes from formula because their adjusted age is <1 year.
Lastly, I plan to give milk in bottles first, not sippies. They are getting the hang of sippies, but they're definitely not ready to move over completely. And, I don't want to change too much at once.

I know there's no absolute right or wrong. I'm just wondering how you did it and what you'd recommend/not recommend. Thanks!

 

Well the first step is knowing there's no right/wrong answer, so you are well on your way to transitioning! You really know your kids the best so you obviously will get the last call.

We were down to 3 8-9oz bottles by that time. I did a gradual transition, by decreasing the formula in each bottle by 2 oz, and substituting it with milk. After a few days, I went to 4/4 oz each. Then 2 oz formula, 6 oz of milk, and then finally all milk. I continued to warm the milk like i did their formula. They did fantastic and I used up all the formula I had left with the final transition so I wasn't wasting the expensive stuff! :lol:

I've found with my 4 kids that for us, the gradual transition worked better. If you choose to, you could probably eliminate that second bottle and start a full meal at that time. At meal times I would give a sippy cup with water and a splash of juice, they didn't get much out of it at first but it helped them learn how to tip it. I also preferred the munchkin sippy cups with the silicone spout, my kids learned on them the best because it was the most similar to their silicone bottle nipples.

If you do a gradual transition you can probably start that and eliminate that noon bottle all at the same time. If you go cold turkey into milk, I would do one transition or the other, just in case they don't enjoy eating a meal at lunch, and then don't enjoy the milk in the afternoon, no-one wants a hungry baby all afternoon (x 2!!) :lol:

 

I have switched cold turkey with all four of my children and have had no complaints ... not even about the difference in temperature (I served formula room temp, then went straight to whole milk from the fridge). I am a meanie!

 

I did a gradual transition to milk too (first in bottles, then to sippies). I started off with a half formula and half milk mix and reduced the amount of formula until it was all gone. I gave milk bottles 3x a day, with breakfast, before the afternoon nap and before bed.
When I dropped bottles (at 15 months), I started off with the afternoon bottle going first, then the morning and then the bed time and I dropped a bottle a week. I then gave sippies of milk with breakfast and after dinner.
Good luck!

 

I started mixing regular milk into their formula to ease them over both on digestion and taste. I realized soon that regular milk wasn't going to work for them because they were on lactose-free formula. The first day was a day of misery, I tell you! (Probably should have anticipated that - mommy error #1!) So, we moved on to whole lactose-free milk and that worked much better. By the end of the first week, they were drinking all milk and no more formula, but they are still taking it in bottles. I also took the opportunity to drop their mid-afternoon bottle, in lieu of having a snack with water, and they seemed OK with that. So, right now, they are having (3) 8oz bottles of whole lactose-free milk a day - @9am, @1pm and @7pm.

The whole sippy cup thing isn't really working for them yet, especially for one of our twins. She just doesn't like them - and we've tried the Nuby ones, the First Years take & toss ones, and now straw cups. She plays with them and will take a sip or two, but doesn't really have any fluid intake to speak of from them, so I'm not quite sure how or when we'll be able to get off the bottles yet.

Don't know if that helped at all, but there it is.

 

I just wanted to say that, it took about 7-10 days after we completely switched to sippy cups before my twins milk intake was back where it needed to be They won't starve or dehydrate themselves...and once they are on 3 meals a day they only need about 16-20 oz of milk a day. It's kind of a leap of faith, once you know that they can use the sippy's if they have to, you can safely start taking away the bottles and eventually they'll drink it from the cups. My oldest ds switched to cups at 11months, his choice, he refused his bottle once he started on a sippy. My oldest dd was 13 months. And the twins were 13-14 months once we got them on cups completely

 

This is exactly what we did. I actually still warm their milk and we have been transitioned for 4 months!

 

We switched cold turkey mainly because I wanted to stop pumping at work and didn't want to buy any more formula. I continued to nurse them AM and bedtime. At 1 year they were on 4 bottles/nursing a day: 7 AM, after nap (11:30 ish), after 2nd nap (3-4ish) and bedtime. After they got used to the milk we then switched to sippies and pretty much offered them any time they were in their high chairs. They don't down 8 oz in a sitting like they did with bottles, but by drinking some at every meal/snack, by the end of the day they get 16-20 oz. We warmed it for the first month or so, and then they started drinking it right out of the fridge.

 

Well...yesterday, my mom put milk into their bottles and sippies. She also added chocolate syrup and heated them up to make cocoa. They are both happily drinking milk now and we don't have to mess with formula anymore! We are also pushing the sippies and trying to keep only the bedtime bottle.

 

Oh yeah chocolate syrup helped my oldest ds too! And our ped said the small amt you use wouldn't hurt him at all

 

Thanks everyone. Lots of good suggestions. I think we'll be starting in a couple of weeks.