Milk/Water Schedule

Hi Everyone!

We are officially off bottles today, strictly on milk in a sippy cup. My question is this and I know I have seen this posted before but forgive me I can never find those posts when I need em!
How do you serve the milk and water, like with the meals, on off meal times etc?

Our kids get up EARLY, so 6am. Breakfast isnt til 8:15 or so at daycare. So I think I'm going to give them a 6oz cup of it right away in the morning.

AT breakfast I was thinking water.

Then lunch is around 11:30 or so, and I was thinking another 6-8oz of milk then...

Snack somewhere in the afternoon, and then dinner around 5:30 with more milk. And if they don't drink the rest they can have it before bedtime?

I'm just not sure how to do this...help, what do you all do?

 

My kids have never consumed 6-8 ounces of milk in a sitting. I think they'd look at me funny if I gave them a cup that full. They get milk with meals and typically take ~12 ounces total over the day. If they don't seem to be drinking much milk, I'll offer it with their snack. I used to have sippies of water available at all times (now they go to the fridge dispenser and get water whenever they like).

ETA: I misread the age of your children as 1 yr 11 mos. I'm guessing you want them them to have more than 12 ounces at their age so yeah, your schedule looks OK to me.

 

I give them 3 sippy cups of milk per day. One when they wake up, one around lunch time, and one after dinner, before bed. I just fill up the cups, I don't know exactly how many ounces that is (I think it's around 8 ounces.) They don't always finish their sippies. In the morning I get 2 other sippies and fill them with water and place them on the coffee table. When I notice that they are empty I refill them. They can have as much water as they want. I just started doing one sippy per day of apple juice too, but so far no one is drinking it.

 

I just stopped bottles and started milk. I've been doing a sippy of milk at each meal, plus a snack in the afternoon with a sippy of milk. I actually think they might be drinking more milk than they need to. I started giving them water if they drink all of their milk and seem like they want more. I think if you do a sippy of milk in the morning, then a sippy of water at breakfast is a good idea. If they aren't doing well with drinking the milk from the sippy, then offer another sippy of milk at snack time. If they are drinking it well, then just do water at snack time. That's what I'm going to start doing. I've been figuring it out as I go. At first, they weren't big fans of the sippy or milk, so I was offering it to them more to get the ounces in them. Now, they can't seem to get enough of it, so I need to cut back.

 

QUOTE(christie76 @ May 30 2009, 03:47 PM) [snapback]1334217[/snapback]
I've been doing a sippy of milk at each meal, plus a snack in the afternoon with a sippy of milk.


Same, with about 4oz in each sippy. Our pedi said not to give more than 16oz a day after 12 months, otherwise they fill up on milk and don't get enough nutrients from food.

 

i actually learned from a nutritionist that it's best not to drink liquids w/meals, so i try doing that w/my little ones. they have their food, and then they get sippies/strawies of water. we haven't put milk in cups yet cuz they still (after six months!) can't keep from dribbling some of on their clothes.

so, they still get milk in bottles at each nap time, and then one at night before we brush our teeth for bed (well, only one of them gets that one, actually. the other nurses).

gl! none of it is easy!

 

Thanks everyone for replying. One question - I know kids and tooth decay is big these days, from them sipping all day. They have their 6am sippy which they only come to once in awhile when they are playing. I'm sure they will not finish their sippy with lunch so then do I pitch it or let them have it between then at dinner? I make this too hard, I know

 

I replaced their bottles with sippies without changing the times at all. So they got one right after breakfast (8 am), right after lunch (12 noon), and right after dinner (4 pm) then another before bed. They had their mealtime cups in the high chairs and bedtime laying in our laps or the boppies, just like the bottle was. If they got up, I reminded them to lay down. If they started to get up again I asked for the cup. It was either, lay with the cup or give it to mommy. In the high chairs, once they finished the main part of the meal, I'd give them puffs or cheerios type things while they worked on the milk. It took probably a month for them to get back up to bottle totals of intake. At about 16 mos I started cutting back the daily total by moving dinner later and the bedtime cup closer to dinner. Eventually they were getting their cup of milk right after dinner. Once the three cups a day was established, we switched lunch to water or very watered down juice. This way they were getting 16oz of milk a day at breakfast and dinner only. Some days they drank it all, other days they didn't.

Sorry, I got a bit long winded!