Weaning from bottles at 9 months

I thought this was interesting... new recommendations here suggest that the optimal time to wean babies from bottles is 9 months.

We finally got off bottles just after a year.. wondering if any of your first year mamas managed to do it earlier? How did you go about it?

 

I did this unintentionally with my daughter. She was exactly nine months old when she decided one day that she was no longer going to take formula. One day she had 10 oz of it, next day she would not take it anymore. I called the pedi and she said to try to switch her over to cow's milk.
I was thinking since it's a completely different thing than formula, I'm just going to put it in the sippy cup and see what happens. She liked it, took it, and that was the end of bottles.
I was lucky, it must not be that easy for everybody.

Now that the boys are 9 months old and I am trying to switch them over to sippy, O takes it easily but E does not want it at all.

 

My oldest was off bottles by the time he was 10 months old. I am aiming for the same thing with the twins. Not sure how it's going to work out though

 

Very interesting, a pamphlet I got from our community health clinic recommended this too.

 

i think "they" are being sneaky. my guess is that by suggestion switching to sippies at 9 months, that's when most people will start so that by 12 months, most people will be switched over.

 

My two are still very fond of their bottles and show no signs of giving them up anytime soon. We try to offer sippy cups but they are having none of it. They just throw them on the ground. Although we probably need to offer them more often than we have been. I look forward to hearing more about how other moms transitioned their LOs to sippies. I am also curious what kind people found worked best? We have the "thinkbaby" ones with a soft, nipple-like spout.

 

We introduced sippies at 9 months and they would take water from them but nothing else. When we switched to cows milk we started with it in a sippy and they did ok with it, but I still nurse AM and PM so I don't know how they would do with it when its not meal time. We got them more used to them by keeping sippies with water in their playroom so they can just crawl over to it and drink whenever they want. Mine are still in the stage of throwing things on the floor so we keep their milk on the table and offer it several times during the meal. We tried several types, and the only type they'll drink from are Nuby.

 

wish i had done that...here we are close to 2 and they will only take milk from a bottle :headbang:

 

The boys were 14 months old and off bottles completely. Annabella is now on one bottle a day. And honestly-she could be done with the bottle. She does awesome with sippy cups-mostly straw cups now. Much better than her brothers did! I went cold turkey and started giving her milk in a straw/sippy cup upon wake up, and then one with lunch. No problems. She still gets the one bottle at night because *I* am not ready... The last of babyhood left... :cry:

 

At 12 months we went to morning and night bottles with sippies at meals. We stopped the bottle completely just shy of 15 months cold turkey with no issues. Our pedi office starts coaching parents at 12 months to start weaning slowly and hopefully by 18 months. He said the thought is they really want them to be done by 2 at the very latest, but it will be harder to take away as that age approaches. My niece had a bottle in her crib until over 3. Not sure if this was the norm or my sister, but times have changed!

 

As mine get older, I am glad we made the switch.. they get more demanding and attached to things by the minute. Quitting the pacis is going to be a huge struggle around here.. I can't imagine what life would be like if I had to get rid of a bottle too.

I agree with Rachel, they probably see people who start trying at 15 months or later all the time and have lots of struggles. It's easier to quit cold turkey when they don't really remember.

Jessica, we had the best luck at first with the playtex ones and also with the nuby soft spout ones. They were never really interested in drinking water out of them and I was still bf'ing them at the time, so we didn't try formula. Once I switched them over to cow's milk at 12 months they really liked taking it out of the sippies. I think it helped that it was something novel and they always associated milk with their sippy cups.

 

At 9 months, K started to transition to the sippy, but C was having none of it. I didn't like having to prep different bottles/sippies so we stuck primarily to the bottle. Then I discover the munchkin straw cups and we haven't looked back. We dropped to 2 bottles a day at 10 months then to bedtime only at 10.5 months and I was trying to hang on to the last bottle, but they weren't even interested in it anymore. It was a fight to get them to hold still long enough to drink their bottles. I do think it helped to start earlier. My sister didn't wean my niece from the bottle until 15 months and it was a little harder for her. I still need to pack up all the bottles... it makes me sad that my monsers aren't babies anymore