Sippy Cups

My twins are 14 months (12 corrected) and I am having a hard time weaning them off their bottles. Since I am alone with them all day, from the time they wake up to the time they go to bed I have been putting them down for naps and to bed with their bottle since it made life easier for me. I always thought that is what most people did, but now I am hearing how awful it is to put baby to sleep with bottles. They would always drink and then toss the bottle which I thought was okay, but it's time to move onto cups.

Please give me some tips, on how to put them to sleep without a bottle and how to transition to a sippy cup? Any advice is very much appreciated. Thanks!!

 

Are they accustomed to sippies at all? Or are you just asking about transistioning tips for milk/formula to a sippy instead of a bottle?

Mine are still on bottles and I typically give them a bottle [or a snack] around 30 mins before they go to sleep [nap or bedtime]. We have yet to transition from bottle to sippies, but every now and then I give them milk in their sippies to see how they react. So my plan is to continue [once a day] to offer a sippy with milk in it during a meal. In about another week I'm going to start replacing the formula in their bottles to regular milk. Then once it's all milk.. I plan to take out a bottle every other day. So the first couple days, I'll replace the morning bottle with a sippy of milk, then replace the bedtime bottle with a sippy of milk, then go from there.

It's easy for me to sit her and say what I 'plan' to do - seeing that we're not over that hump yet. So it will be nice to see what mama's have done [successfully] This is just my idea to make it work.

 

hello there,
you're right, you're not suppose to give kids bottle in bed (you suppose to brush/clean their teeths by now after last milk intake in evening)...we never did give them bottles in crib, what we did was a slow transition. you can try that too, we did it because ours were used to get their bottles before naps and night sleep in their room, on rocking chair, quitely.

so when we transitioned I started with doing the morning sippy, instead bottle. (at this point they were down to 3 bottles a day, about 7oz each) so our routine was getting up, after a while they would get a sippy with 4-5oz of milk in their quite play/book area, they would lay down with their heads on their bobby pillows and drink some.

our son would always drink more than our daughter, 1 hour later they had breakfast and towards the end of it, I would give them the sippy again, to try to finish it.
slowly they would drink more and more, I think over the course of a week, they were used to it. then I did the same thing for lunch.
the harder thing for us was more that you have to brush their teeths after breakfast or after last milk intake in morning, so they would get all worked up again before their morning nap, and of course not having the soothing bottle in their room before nap was a transition, they would cry for a bit, but not very long.

I would only give them water in between meals and the milk sippies right after meal, now they drink so much milk that if I would give it before meals, they would fill up on milk.

what also helped in our case, as soon as I started the milk sippies, I switched the water sippies to water straw cups. so they would difference between milk and water, and it works, they love their milk sippies now and also their straw cups, they also practice drinking out of real cups now.

these are the sippies I use, they are easy to hold for small hands, stack into each other, are light, no valves (milk comes out in right speed, not to slow and not too fast) and go in dishwasher. if they tip them over, some drops come out but that was never an issue for us as they finish their cups now in one sitting.

http://www.diapers.com/Product/ProductDetail.aspx?ProductID=6018

http://www.amazon.com/Munchkin-Mighty-Straw-2-Pack-Colors/dp/B001QXCF0S/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1248709210&sr=8-11

GL

 

I think the biggest issue with letting them drink a bottle to fall asleep is that they need to have their teeth brushed before they fall asleep. Otherwise, they can get cavities, and milk is especially bad for causing that. We used the Avent Magic Cups at first and my boys took to them really well. However, like the pp said, if you just give the bottle a bit earlier, in a different environment, you should be able to do bedtime later and separately from the last bottle, until you are ready to completely drop bottles. I dreaded dropping the nighttime bottle but it went very smoothly for us.

As far as how to put them to bed, that is your choice but it is always helpful to establish a good bedtime routine - the same order of events every single night. Something like bath, PJ's, brush teeth, story time, hugs & kisses, into cribs, lights out. Talking to them about everything that is going on and about night time is also helpful. As far as soothing to sleep, either you do it (rocking, etc) or they do it (CIO or other self-soothing methods). Good luck - I hope your new night time routine goes over well!

 

We were not bottle free until 16 months. I dropped bottles gradually for them. We started with the bottle that they would miss the least, the afternoon one and replaced that with a sippy. They had been using the sippy throughout the day prior to this. Then the following week we dropped the morning bottle and replaced that with a sippy. We also changed our morning routine around...instead of eating breakfast in their bumbo seats, we had them have breakfast in their high chairs and they have a sippy of milk before breakfast. The following week was going to be what we thought the hard one, the bedtime bottle. We also replaced that with a sippy and that transition went well. They sit on our laps and drink from the sippy and then we go to bed.
I am not sure if you started sippies yet or not, but once we started sippies (around 6-7 months) we started with the Nuby soft spout and then by the time we dropped bottles, they were on the Munchkin straw cups.
I agree with Erin that you might have to change your bedtime routine around once you drop that bottle. Perhaps get them ready for bed, give the sippy, brush teeth, storytime and then bedtime. Good luck!

 

Thanks for all the thoughtful replies! I guess I shouldn't feel too bad if they don't take to the cups right away. So what do i do if they don't drink the milk from the sippy - give in and give them a bottle? Just don't put them to nap/bed with it?

I feel like I'm a bad mom for giving them a bottle to bed to now. I guess I took the easy route and now it's coming back to haunt me.

 

It's often the case

I'd just give them sippies of water during the day. When they drink well from them, I'll start giving them some milk in them... I agree with changing their schedule though so that they get bottles out of the crib before worrying about switching though.

 

You may want to ask your pediatrician about suggestions for transitioning them, and if it's ok to miss out on the milk during the day. I'm guessing they're eating solids so they're getting calcium and protein from other sources. Try water or milk in the sippies and see if they prefer one over the other. I heard the Nuby sippies with the soft tops were easiest for transition. Mine loved those cups but now they're transitioned onto straws. You may want to see if they like straw cups, they're supposed to be better for their oral motor development. It's much different than sucking from a bottle though so you may want to go sippy first.

 

Hi. I agree w/the pp's I just wanted to add my 2 cents. We are 13 months but 11.5 adjusted however we were able to transition to sippies w/both within the past week. It took quite awhile but I started introducing water in the take and toss cups since the water comes our easily/no valve. The we started w/the morning bottle and put that in munchkin soft spout handle sippies which worked well for one DS but the other hated them. I went thru a zillion until I found the born free soft spout sippie, which is very similar to a bottle and he loved it. It takes a little time but I was SOOOO happy when I could get rid of my bottle rack and bottle stuff which I just did this am!!!! Good Luck

 

I agonized over the whole sippy cup transition but for me, it turned out to be super easy. I don't mean to suggest that this would work for everyone but it could be worth a try.
My boys just weren't getting the whole sippy cup thing. I would give them to them and they played with them but just didn't drink out of them.
One day, I noticed that they were interested in the straw that I had in my glass of water so I let them try to drink out of it. It was really messy at first, they would suck up some water then let it run down their chins. I kept letting them try my straw until they got used to it a bit more. it wasn't something i really went out of my way for, I would just get a glass of water when I wanted one and made sure I grabbed a straw too.
Once they (mostly)had the hang of my straw I gave them a Nuby straw cup once a day with milk. They had a little trouble at first because they have suck harder than on a regular straw but once I saw that they were getting SOME milk out of it consistently I just switched over all their daytime bottles for cups. I think they missed out on a little milk (not all, just some) for the fist 2 or 3 days but then they were champs!
Nighttime bottle was a different story and its actually my fault, I just didn't want to give up the one time a day when they snuggled and took a bottle but about a week ago we switched that to a cup of water right before bed which they sit on our laps and drink. As long as they get the hang of cups, I personally don't think letting them still have the one bottle just before bed is a terrible thing.
As far as bottles in bed are concerned, could you give them a bottle with water in it? That shouldn't harm their teeth and they could still use it to self-soothe.

 

Thanks for the advice. They went down for their nap and to bed with not too much fuss without their bottle. My son woke during the night and refused the water so I gave him 2 ounces of milk and then an ounce of water to hopefully wash away the milk and he went immediately to sleep.

I feel like a HORRIBLE mom now. I should of read a book or something. I seriously thought most put them down with a bottle while they were still under one. I googled bottle mouth decay and now I'm stressed to the max! I really screwed up this time. I feel like the only goof that did this.

They don't seem to care for their sippys but I'll keep at it.

 

Don't beat yourself up, there are things that all of us do that we realize later we should have done differently but its not the end of the world! They aren't too young to take to a pediatric dentist, it might make you feel better to hear either 1. they don't have any problems or 2. heres the problem and heres what we're going to do about it.
Also, if you do give them milk after the last toothbrushing of the night, you can take a damp washcloth in with you when you give him the milk and gently wipe off his teeth when hes finished with the bottle. It probably wouldn't be as disruptive to him as a full toothbrushing.
You also could consider letting him CIO when he wakes up. My pedi told us that after about 9 months old, they really don't need the nutrition at night.