Stopping the bottle

bkurtz0404

When did you ladies stop using bottles? My 13 month old still has a morning bottle, a bottle before nap time, and a bedtime bottle. I am not sure if/ when we should stop doing this. He drinks WCM from a sippy cup when he eats a meal and has WCM in the bottles. Not sure how to go about stopping either. We got him on the bad habit of associating a bottle with sleeping so now he won't fall asleep without one (especially at naptime). 

Any suggestions??? 

mama&baby

Stopping cold turkey and suffering through it for about a week until baby realizes he won't be getting a bottle just to go to sleep. Once babies have WCM they should only be drinking it from a sippy cup and bottle should be gone (according to our pedi, anyways). We give a sippy cup full in the morning and one before bed (about 15-16 oz total) but he doesn't associate the one before bed with sleep. Sure it calms him down but he sleeps fine without it if we happen to miss a bottle.

We stopped the bottle cold turkey when we started WCM and I can tell you it's definitely not a fun couple of days... but your LO should adjust fine after a week. GL!

ktpaladino

We made the switch at 12 months when he started the WCM. DS was never a big bottle user though, so it was quite an easy transition for us. He only had a bottle once or twice a week when DH put him to bed. He did better with the straw sippy than the spout kind.

PrimRoseMama

12 months. We just switched over to sippy cups at night. Cold turkey and it worked ok. 

bkurtz0404

mama&baby:

Stopping cold turkey and suffering through it for about a week until baby realizes he won't be getting a bottle just to go to sleep. Once babies have WCM they should only be drinking it from a sippy cup and bottle should be gone (according to our pedi, anyways). We give a sippy cup full in the morning and one before bed (about 15-16 oz total) but he doesn't associate the one before bed with sleep. Sure it calms him down but he sleeps fine without it if we happen to miss a bottle.

We stopped the bottle cold turkey when we started WCM and I can tell you it's definitely not a fun couple of days... but your LO should adjust fine after a week. GL!

See I get confused because our dr  said that they should only get sippy cup at meal time and I just feel like he should get more milk than that. But yet I see kids all the time walking around with sippy cup in hand. Maybe I will try a sippy cup before bed and cut out the bedtime bottle. DH is not on board with getting rid of the morning bottle yet so i will have some convincing to do.

MrsJetSet

We stopped cold turkey at about 12.5 mos when I ran out of our freezer stash. Dd had a hard time the first night when I offered a traditional sippy at bed. The next night I gave her a soft straw sippy and she never looked back. We still use the soft straw at bed but during the day she will drink from anything.

ktpaladino

bkurtz0404:

mama&baby:

Stopping cold turkey and suffering through it for about a week until baby realizes he won't be getting a bottle just to go to sleep. Once babies have WCM they should only be drinking it from a sippy cup and bottle should be gone (according to our pedi, anyways). We give a sippy cup full in the morning and one before bed (about 15-16 oz total) but he doesn't associate the one before bed with sleep. Sure it calms him down but he sleeps fine without it if we happen to miss a bottle.

We stopped the bottle cold turkey when we started WCM and I can tell you it's definitely not a fun couple of days... but your LO should adjust fine after a week. GL!

See I get confused because our dr  said that they should only get sippy cup at meal time and I just feel like he should get more milk than that. But yet I see kids all the time walking around with sippy cup in hand. Maybe I will try a sippy cup before bed and cut out the bedtime bottle. DH is not on board with getting rid of the morning bottle yet so i will have some convincing to do.

Did u ask what his/her reasoning was behind this? That doesn't seem to make any sense to me. Surely they are going to need to drink more throughout the day rather than just at meals to get enough fluids, and they can't be on a bottle forever. So what do they propose they drink from when they are thirsty and it's not mealtime? Plus, my LO tends to fill himself up on liquids and eat less at mealtime, so I've learned to only let him take a few sips during meals, and then give him the rest of his drink when he's finished eating. Seems to be working well for us.

RMama2012

I am thinking of doing it this weekend myself since I am off for 3 days in a row. I don't know yet what to do but I wanted to offer some advice with the sleep association. My sister cut the habit by switching to water for my nephew. It was gentle and eventually he gave it up on his own.