How to transfer from bottle to cups and to milk?

Stephorse

LO just turned one. The doctor said we could make the transition slowly as he has milk allergy issues. She recommended rice milk, but I forgot to ask how to transition him. Right now he is on Alimentum and gets 7 oz when he wakes up, one bottle of 8 oz before naps (which is one in the morning and one in the afternoon) and then one before bed. He is on the small side (almost 23 lbs), but the doctor didn't seem concerned about his weight. He eats finger foods and is starting to eat with a spoon. Should I cut out bottles cold turkey? Start with one bottle and see how it goes? I would think the bottles before bed and when he wakes in the morning would be the last to go, so should I start with nap bottles? He also drinks water from a Doidy cup after meals and has just started figuring out how to suck out of a straw so should I offer the rice milk in a cup or a sippy? Please help as you can see this is the first time I'm doing this! TIA!

mamaHippo23

Yes, put the rice milk in a sippy or straw cup and give it with his meals. To cut out the naptime bottles, I just bring his cup upstairs and offer it while we're sitting in the chair before we read our books. Otherwise, to replace daytime bottles just keep giving him drinks of milk or water frequently throughout the day.

How you handle the transition really depends more on your LO's personality. My son takes to change fairly well (as good as any 1 year old can), so once he mastered the sippy cup, I cut all his bottles in half for a few days, and then dropped all daytime bottles, and finally stopped the bedtime bottle too. The entire process took about 2 weeks, but I probably could've done it even faster if I tried. That is just what worked for my kid, though. You can do it more slowly and just cut back a couple ounces at a time. Or you can just throw all the bottles out today and go straight to exclusively using the cup.  I would experiment a little and see what your LO seems comfortable with.

CLLDLL

I agree with PP that how you do the transition is really dependent on you and your LO's personality.  What worked for us was to first intro a cup with water.  A few weeks to a month later when he was comfortable with it, I started offering BM in the cup at his most awake feeding ( early afternoon).  At first he'd take only about an ounce out of the cup before getting tired/frustrated.  Then I'd dump the rest into a bottle for him.  Eventually (maybe 2-3 weeks later) he started consistently taking the whole feeding from the cup.  Then I slowly started replacing other feedings with cups instead of bottles.

Now we are working on replacing the BM with WCM for his day time feeds.  I'm starting by again picking his most calm & awake feed to mix 1/4 WCM and 3/4 BM.  Eventually we'll transition to 1/2 and 1/2 and then 3/4 and 1/4.  Then I'll move on to the next feeding.  

 Watch for constipation as you increase the WCM to formula ratio.  If your LO has issues add in a little prune juice or more fresh fruits to help keep things regular!! Good luck!

salbabe79

many peds don't recommend almond milk till 2 years