when do you stop using bottles

Hi folks, got a few questions - when do you normally stop giving bottles and using only sippy cups or cups with straws? When you stopped using bottles did you just stop and not look back? also when do you stop giving milk at bedtime and when you stopped giving milk did you replace it with water?

 

We pretty much went cold-turkey from daytime bottles to sippies at meals at 12 months, and transitioned from formula to milk gradually over the course of a couple weeks. We did bedtime bottles until about 13 months (for one boy; I nursed the other), then went to sippies of warmed milk at bedtime after that.

We are still (at 21 months) giving them warmed sippies of milk at bedtime; my guys are pretty skinny so we've had to focus on getting calories in them for the first part of the second year. I'm not sure when we're going to stop that, maybe at 2? ardon: They love their bedtime milk, so we may have a fight on our hands with that one!

 

My pediatrician wants them off of bottles by 15 months. We're down to just a bottle at breakfast and one before bed. Everything else is sippy cups of milk or water.

 

Around 12 months I started by giving them a sippy cup of warmed milk in the afternoon instead of a bottle. Once they got that down good, we substituted the morning one. We left the bedtime bottle until last, at around 13 months. Then we started warming them less and less until they were taking their milk cold from the fridge. It took about 4-6 weeks to completely transition over.

My oldest transitioned himself, I introduced the sippy cup at 11 months and he refused his bedtime bottle that night, but drank his milk from his straw sippy instead.!

My oldest dd was similar to the twins, around 13 months.

 

We did cold-turkey on bottles at 12 months for the twins and my youngest. We had been working on sippy cups for well over a month and I knew they could do it. I never put formula in their sippy and never put milk in their bottle. So we transitioned from formula straight to milk and didn't mix them at all. We didn't have any problem with that, except for one of mine didn't much care for milk so I did add a little syrup for flavoring and that really helped. There was a week that their milk supply totally dropped but once they got that they weren't going to get a bottle, they took to the sippy cups.
Good luck!

 

At 12 months I started adding in some milk to their bottles and lessening the amount I was warming them up. Over the next week, I was giving straight cold milk in the bottle. We then dropped all bottles and went to sippies of cold milk with meals and snacks and sippies of water free choice all day. I started mine out at 6 months practicing with a sippie and they could drink water out of them well at 9-10 months, so they knew how to work the cup when we made the transition. I had not given them any formula or milk in the sippie prior to dropping the bottles.

I do give mine a sippie of water in their cribs. I've started to only fill it 1/4 full at bedtime as I'm starting to think that could be a problem when we go to potty train. Mine couldn't get the hang of straw sippies until 18-20 months old. I think I bought ones that were way too hard to get liquid out of though.

Mine never had any issues with falling asleep when we dropped the bottle.

Good luck!!

 

15 months we started dropping bottles gradually. At the time they were on 3 bottles of milk a day (morning, afternoon and before bed)...we started with the bottle in the afternoon, figuring that's the one they'd miss the least. The following week the morning one was dropped and the last week was the bedtime one.
They had been drinking water out of straw sippies before all this, so changing to the sippy was not too big of a deal.
They (still) at 28 months have a milk sippy after breakfast and an hour before bedtime.

Good luck!

 

Shortly after they turned 12 months, we replaced all bottles with sippies except the morning and night time bottles. They would only take cold milk from the sippy cup, so we had to warm the milk in the bottles. After a couple weeks of that, we dropped the night bottle (replaced with sippy). The following week we dropped the morning bottle. We've been bottle free now for a few weeks! Helloooo counter space! No more bottle rack, bottle warmers, dishwasher baskets or cans of formula! Good luck.

 

We started dropping bottles at 11 months, and we were down to 1 bottle at 12 months. That was the bedtime bottle. I had replaced them with cold formula in sippies with meals and snacks, so at 12 months I switched all those cold sippies to cold whole milk, but kept the bottle formula.

We dropped that last bottle at 12.5 months. We did a bedtime sippy of milk for a couple days, but we dropped that almost at the same time.

 

We switched to straw cups at 11 months, (sort of) cold turkey and straight to milk (on the doctor's ok). We were traveling across the country and I did not want to have to carry and wash bottles or deal with formula while we were gone. We were down to three bottles a day anyway at that point, so we stepped down each week. First the daytime, then the morning then the bedtime bottle.

The boys did go through a period of drinking much less milk (a couple weeks), and they would drink a few sips here and there--not suck down a whole cup at a time. After about a month, they were back to their normal consumption. They can now down 8 oz in about 2 minutes :ibiggrin:

The other weird thing is that I tried to give them one last cup of milk before bed as part of our bedtime routine (like we had done with bottles) and they refused! I tried for almost two weeks to get them to cuddle and drink, and they were like "No way mom!" So we moved the last milk to before/with dinner. They get nothing after dinner except a bath, and then it's time for cuddles, stories and bed.

I will say that I know a lot of people who have a really hard time dropping the last bottle of the night.

 

we started with sippies around 6 months...there was just a sip or 2 of water in them and they'd get it with solid meals (usually lunch or dinner)...it was for practice more than anything...we then started putting their formula in it for lunch and dinner around 9-10 months and by a year they were down to one bottle for their afternoon "snack" which they gave up on their own by the time they were 13 months old...we never gave a bedtime bottle and we never warmed their formula/milk...

 

my girls are 22 months and they still get a bottle at bedtime. We switched to sippy's months ago but they just can't seem to let go of the nighttime bottle and refuse to take a sippy before bed.