How to accomplish this task?

Hello! I just moved over to this forum . . . my little girls turned ONE on St. Patrick's Day. Anyways, as per pedi, she said to start weaning them off the bottle. To do this, she recommended to eliminate the middle two bottles and replace with sippies of water or whole milk. Then after a few days, eliminate the morning bottle, and finally the bedtime bottle. However, my little ones do not do well with the sippies or whole milk. We tried the whole milk last night, and they just spit it out. What should I do?? I want them to get enough nourishment. Also, approx. how much table food at each meal do you give? Sorry that this is so scattered, I was very nervous about giving the girls their vaccinations (with the whole autism thing), but we decided to go ahead with them. I hope everything will turn out ok. I worry everyday.

Thanks,
Jen

 

If you want you can put the formula in the sippy and get them to like and use the sippies that way then do 1/4 milk with 3/4 formula...then 1/2 & 1/2 then full milk. I am also guilty of using chocolate or strawberry to flavor the milk. To this day my daughter still will not drink regualr milk...only chocolate. But my boys all do regular milk.
The longer you use the bottles the harder it gets to take them away!!

Cindy

 

We made the transition from bottles to sippies by using a soft spouted cup at first instead of the hard plastic ones. I want to say they were Nuby brand. Walmart and Toys R Us had them. Once they had the change in shape down we switched to the hard sippies which were more "spill proof."
You can mix the milk with formular or try warming it. It all depends on what they are used to. I had to warm it to take the chill off in the beginning. The more "ice cold water" they drank, the easier it was to get them to get cold milk down.

 

Before we took away the bottles, we started mixing the formula and whole milk to wean them from the formula. Then we did away with the midday bottles, then the morning bottle, and then the bedtime bottle (replacing each with a sippy cup of whole milk). When we went for our 1 year WBV, the only bottle they were still getting was at bedtime. We asked how to wean them from it and our pedi suggested putting water in the bottle to see if they were needing to suck and/or drink to go to sleep or if they just wanted the bottle so we would hold them and snuggle before bed. That night we put water in the bottle. They each drank a very small amount and went to sleep like always. The next night we did the same thing and they both pushed the bottle away and just wanted to be held before falling asleep. I had agonized over how hard it would be to get rid of the night time bottle and it was easy! After that, they got a cup of milk with dinner and that was it. Nothing right before bed.

 

We stopped all bottles at 12 months. I did that exact thing, when I gave up a bottle replaced it with a sippy of milk. They will eventually get used to the sippy and start to drink more. I also mixed formula with milk before totally stopping the formula for them to get used to it.

Welcome to 1-4 and :birthday: girls!

 

Ours weened themselves when they were that age. We just started giving Sippies and never thought about the whole ratio thing. First they went to using bottles only at night (with water) now they only use sippies, even during the night if they do wake up.

 

Welcome! I don't have any good advice on the whole weaning issue as my boys were never big bottle drinkers but don't get discouraged with them rejecting the whole milk initially. Just like anything new, they'll have to get used to it and it may take a few days or weeks of repeatedly giving it to them before they accept it. If they are used to formula, like the pp have said, try mixing formula and milk together and slowing alter the ratio until they are drinking all milk.

In terms of quantity of table food, a general rule of thumb is a tablespoon of each item per year of age. Granted, my boys always eat more than that, but its a good place to start especially with new self-feeders. Toddlers are very good at regulating their intake and won't go hungry. It's pretty typical for their appetites to vary and for them to reject new foods the first few times they are offered it. Just make sure you are offering a balanced diet with variety! good luck!