When did you drop a bottle

We aren't officially out of the first years yet (2 weeks to go) but I thought this might be a better spot to post this. We just had our 1 yr pedi appt today and he said next month to go ahead and introduce milk. I'm assuming the best method is to introduce it slowly and mix with the formula for a bit? any suggestions or tips?

Also I was wondering when do you drop a bottle? We are doing 6oz X 4bottles a day. 7am,11am,3pm and 7pm. I am guessing that its the 11 am one I should drop?? Did you then give them something to drink with lunch? I am a little confused at how this is all supposed to work. My girls are eating 3 meals a day. I do have one that is more picky and I worry that she is relying on the formula more. The pedi gave me some info on making sure once the forumula is dropped that they eat enough iron rich foods. The are measuring good weights for their adjusted age of 10 months so he felt that switching to milk was ok. Any advice is welcome

 

Well I don't belong here officially, either. At least not until tomorrow. But here is what we do:

6.00am - 8oz whole milk
9.00am - breakfast (waffle or french toast or oatmeal with fruit and yogurt)
snack
11.30am - lunch (I cook on most days or they eat baby food stage3 - approx 5-6 oz)
nap 12.00-2.30
2.40pm - 6-7 oz of milk
snack
5.00pm - dinner
7.00pm - 5-6 oz of milk

I made the switch about a week ago. First I gave them a little bit of milk in the morning after their formula. They liked it. So the next day I gave them milk instead of formula in the morning. They seemed ok with it. So I gave it another two days. Then I gave them milk in the morning and in the afternoon for 2 days - they still had formula before bedtime. Then I just cut the formula out completely.
I guess I'm lucky as 1. they liked milk from the get go, 2. they did not get constipated.

 

We stopped around 11 months and IMO cold turkey worked best. The girls really didn't care for the taste of formula and whole milk...it even smells and looks nasty.

 

I did a gradual transition... I started with half formula and half milk and each day reduced the formula amount until it was only milk in there. Since my two needed to put on weight, they were on 24 oz of milk at 12 months. My DD also had a slight iron deficiency so we gave her the Poly Vi Sol Iron drops daily (those smell and taste horrible, I don't know how she took it!).
This was my schedule at 12 months:
7:30-8- 8oz of milk
8:30-9- breakfast
9:30-11 nap
11:00 or 11:30 lunch
12:30 snack if they wanted it
1:30- 8oz bottle
2:00-4 nap
4:30-dinner
7:00 8oz bedtime bottle
They had a sippy of water through out the day.

 

We did gradual and waited a week between dropping each bottle. It was worse for me than for them. We dropped the midafternoon bottle first (3pm) and introduced a solid food snack. Then a week later, we dropped the midmorning bottle and gave them more food with lunch. We also started milk in a sippy cup around that time. We then dropped the am bottle (replaced with sippy of milk and snack), then at 13 months, we dropped the bedtime bottle. I held on to the bed time bottle more out of me liking it than them wanting it. To get rid of that one, we slowly decreased the amount of formula we gave them and then one day, we ran out of formula (we were at 2oz a night) so we stopped bottles.

 

We switched cold turkey because I stopped pumping. I found that mine wouldn't sit and drink from sippies like they would with bottles, so I just started giving them milk with every meal and snack and then putting it back in the fridge afterward for the next time. Doing it this way, mine drink 2-3 sippies a day, plus they still nurse at bedtime. When I am gone at work they get the sippy again while daddy is playing with them in the evening, before they go upstairs for teethbrushing, story and bed. There is no right or wrong way to do it. You just experiment whatever works for you.

 

My pedi recommented weening the milk into formula....We did 1oz milk and 6oz formula for one full day, then the next day we did 2oz milk to 5oz formula, etc until it was all whole milk....he said it helps to determine if they had milk allergies....as far as dropping a bottle this is what we did(my DD's are almost 14 months)

7:00am 6/7oz milk
8:00am breakfast--waffle, pancake, french toast---and fruit
11:00am 6 oz milk bottle
12:00 lunch--really depends on what i got that week at shoprite--always with fruit
3:00 sippie of half water and half juice with snack--goldfish, cheerios, nutragrain bar(I USED TO GIVE MILK BOTTLE HERE)
5:00pm dinner with fruit
7:00pm 6 oz milk bottle

 

I was still bf'ing at a year, so I just gave them milk in their sippies and I gradually weaned them off of the boob. We never mixed with formula though.. the milk was a special "treat" to entice them to switch to sippy cups at the same time.

 

Your day looks just like mine I usually put them down at 3-4 for a nap, so maybe I will try and lose that bottle. Just give a snack like you do before the nap with a sippy (even though they don't seem to be getting the hang of those too well yet. Maybe they will eat a better dinner. I find sometimes they eat really well and sometimes not. My one has a huge gag reflex that she often triggers with her own finger and up comes all the meal I soooo painfully got her to eat!!! :headbang: I just worry they wont get enough nutrition.

 

I went cold turkey to sippies (was dealing with bottle aversion, so it was a huge relief!), and just started giving milk at mealtimes. I found that once they stopped nursing/drinking formula they ramped *way* up on the solids!

Good luck with the transition!