Any Tips for bottle weanig?

Our Pedi wants us off bottles at 12 months and we can start transitioning to cow milk a few weeks prior. However, my babies love those bottles! We are still at 3-4 bottle feedings a day and one middle of the night for DS.

I need to work on dropping that midnight feeding but I will do that sometime soon.

What can I do to start transitioning to cups? We use sippies for meals and juice and water but they dont seem to want to take a cup of formula..Ugh!! I have tried several cups and they dont mind any particular one. Which ones are best for trying to break the bottle or whats the best for this period? 9mth to a year?

 

You could start introducing milk to them in small amounts in sippies. They associate their formula with their bottle, so they don't think it belongs in a sippie, but something new like milk they might take in the cup without much trouble. I never put milk in a bottle. When we transitioned to milk, I automatically served it to them in a sippie instead of the bottle so they never started associating the two.

 

tinalb's advice is great, & also try using a sippy that has a nipple close to what their bottle nipple is. I dont know from experience, I have just been told this by others.

Also I wouldn't put an age on weaning, all babies are different, if they need a little more time to wean than thats fine. 12 months is just the age to start trying.

 

Ditto to this - we just weaned from our last two bottles (morning and night) last week. We just went cold turkey. One LO fussed the first night and started finishing the full 8 oz completely by the next day. At 1 year we took away the daytime bottles and replaced with sippies or straw cups. You may see a drop in their milk intake at first (if you are used to counting ounces) but they catch back up - good luck. My pedi said they start recommending at 1 year because in reality people will take many months into the 2nd year to do it...LOL.

 

I swear I should have taken notes with the boys... With Annabella I am doing EVERYTHING differently and it's driving me batty! So I'll be following this thread for sure!

The boys were off bottles at 14 months. In fact, it was Dec 31, 2008 they had their last bottle-it was their night one. Annabella just turned one almost two weeks ago, and she still is on three bottles/day. I wish I took Tina's advice and put only milk in sippy cups. Doh! But I did milk in bottles with the boys as well...

For the boys, I just slowly replaced a bottle of milk with a sippy of milk. Annabella gets milk when she wakes, after lunch, and before bed. I will replace either the am or lunch one first... I really should get on that... LOL!

I agree with pp, there's no set "rules" to doing it. At least you are thinking about it-it's a start. But don't go crazy if they are still on the bottle at 12 months, or 13, or 16 months. I would just start by giving them their sippy cups consistently now, and the transition should be a breeze-or you could always just go cold turkey(which I may have...clearly I can't remember!). Good luck!

 

I also don't say "Hey, you turned 12 months today, no more bottles!" At 12 months we started the transition. First I eliminated their afternoon bottle (they had a morning, afternoon, and bedtime bottle still), and substituted a milk sippy cup. We'd been "practicing" with sippy cups since about 7-8 months old, so they had the basic concept, they just required a little help tipping it up still. A couple weeks later we took away the morning bottle and gave them milk cups. Around 13.5 months we took away the nighttime bottle as well. It was pretty easy to switch them over, and their milk intake dropped a bit for about a week, but they quickly caught back up!

 

Weaning from bottles was very easy for all of my girls, who were all weaned by 12 months. I don't think it is too big of a deal if they aren't weaned by exactly a year though. I start teaching my kiddos to use a sippy around the same time they start solids (5-6 months) by giving them a sippy without the spill proof thing in it and water. So by the time they are a year they know how to use it really well. I also only ever put formula or EBM in the bottle other drinks were put only in the sippy. I know a lot of people do this and I don't think it is a bad thing, but I never let any of my girls feed themselves, go to bed with or walk around with a bottle. When it was time for a bottle me, DH or another family member/friend would hold/feed them I think that helped them not be attached to their bottle. Anyways I started replacing a bottle with milk in a sippy when they were getting close to a year so that by a year they were getting all whole milk in a sippy and bottles were packed up and given away.