Transitioning to sippy cups

We started offering sippy cups at 11 months but they really didn't seem to get it. They'd maybe take a drink or two but then just start playing with the cup. It took close to two weeks before they started to figure it out and they did really well with water, usually when they were warm from being outside for a while. We then tried giving them a sippy cup of milk before dinner which is when they usually take their smallest bottle of the day (6 oz.), but they would only take a drink or two and would then cry for the bottle. We decided to take a break from sippys with milk, thinking that they weren't quite ready. We did still offer them water in the sippys and they do really well with them now. So we tried milk again yesterday (after about 10 days of a break) and Leo took aout 1 oz. and Jude took about 3 oz. then they were done. This was a big improvement from before, but they were still thirsty and proceeded to drink the remainder from a bottle.

So what should I try? Keep letting them take a little at a time from the sippy? Do I not offer them a bottle at all at one feeding? The thing is, I know they still want more milk even whey they don't finish the sippy. They get mad and cry and won't put the sippy in their mouth again. Do I let them go thirsty instead of giving them the rest of the milk in the bottle?

 

When I dropped the bottles, I just dropped them completely. They had no other option but to drink from a sippy cup. With the milk, I would flavor it with a little bit of strawberry syrup and also added carnation instant breakfast (my kids needed the extra calories at the time) so that gave them some incentive to want to drink it from the sippy cup.
I don't know what time of the day your two get milk but I dropped a bottle a week, so in the AM, they would get a bottle of milk and that was replaced with sippy for them...then the afternoon bottle was dropped and then evening one was dropped too (that was also milk).
Sometimes when you do drop bottles, their milk intake will go down but you can always supplement it with other dairy products (yogurt, pudding, cottage cheese, etc) until they start drinking a good amount from the sippy cup.

 

I would keep trying. The first time I offered my boys milk in a sippy cup, they looked at like I was crazy (literally! DS1 took one drink, stopped, gave me a weird look, and wouldn't drink any more). That first time I think they each drank 1-2 oz. But within a few days, they were doing great.

 

Right now they get three bottles a day. 8 oz. in the morning right before breakfast, 8 oz. at lunchtime before getting solids, and 6 oz. in the late afternoon/early evening about an hour before dinner. So you think I should drop one of these bottles completely? Would you go with the smallest bottle? That's what we were trying before. They would get really fussy and cry because they wanted the milk - just not from the cup.

 

If you do decide to drop bottles, I would start with the bottle they would least miss first...for my two it was their afternoon bottle. I know some Moms here on TS had great success dropping all the bottles cold turkey. It just depends what you think works best for your two and what you are comfortable with. Most pediatricians do recommend dropping bottles at 12 months, however, I dropped bottles a little late (15 months) but my two were barely on the curve for weight. The pedi wanted us to monitor their milk intake and I felt I could do that better with bottles then sippies. My two still got a sippy of water throughout the day.

 

When we transitioned, I dropped the midday bottle first and gave them a sippy cup of milk with each meal and let them drink what they would. Once they got good at it and were drinking a fair amount of milk, then I quickly replaced the other two bottles with the sippy.

One thing I found helped is I would have both their water cup and their milk cup at meals. I would hand them one and say "this is water" and let them drink. Then I'd hand them the other one and say "this is milk" before they took a drink. It seemed like they understood, and that way they weren't shocked when they took a sip and it was milk. Within a few days, they were drinking like champs, and that was after a total disaster the first day.