Weaning from the bottle

kristalovesjared · February 2011

What age did you start? What age were bottles completely gone? How'd you do it?

I feel like I just weaned her from bfing to bottles and now it's time to wean again. Everything that we've had to wean her off of, cold turkey worked the best, so I'm thinking that's what I'll have to do, but I'm not sure what to do at night. She falls asleep on her own, but if she wakes in the middle of the night (4 nights a week) I give her a bottle and she goes right back to bed. I don't think she's actually starving, I just know it's the fastest way for me to get back to sleep.

itskacie · February 2011

I think the thing for us that helped us wean from bottles so quickly (less than a week or so) was that I never upped the nipple size she used, so the milk came out really slowly. When she got a sippy cup of milk, it came out faster and she got more so she decided she liked that better!

Also, the middle of the night bottle was the last to go for us too. I just started putting less in it, like 1 oz... and when it was gone, it was gone. Then switched to water and she was like WTF and never really looked back. She is a binky addict though so she is still using something...

Good luck!

Seattle_JiLLn · February 2011

Theres nothing wrong with bottles. Sleeping with one in their mouth all night is bad but drinking one in the night does no harm. At some point you should be introducing an open cup so she can learn that skill but that doesn't mean you have to ditch bottles or sippies to do that. Ben still had a bottle before bed til at least 18 months. And he's four now and still uses sippies because I don't want him spilling in the car or wandering around the house. So I don't think you need o worry about it. She's barely one. Take a weaning break.

scrh2010 · February 2011

Well, we aren't quite at that age yet :P but I just wanted to say good luck once you decide to start weaning her!

keri1013 · February 2011

I think we started a bit after a year. I would do what Kacie recommended to get rid of the middle of the night bottle. While it's not hurting her to have it, like you said, it sounds like she doesn't really need it, and if you can get her used to falling back to sleep without it, so much the better for everyone! We switched to the Born Free sippy with the soft spout for Max's pre-bed milk, it took a few tries but he was okay with it. I do warm the milk which helps a lot. He still uses that one, we should probably switch at some point, but he drinks from a regular sippy or regular cup during the day so I'm not in a hurry. Good luck!

jcyahne · February 2011

By about 14 months I think Jillian was completely off the bottle. We had started giving her a sippy cup around 6 months (it took her a while to figure it out). Around age one we stopped giving her bottles during the day. Then when I got brave enough I eliminated the nighttime bottle. I never really felt like I had to force it. It just happened gradually.

Bri&Shane_3/8/08 · February 2011

My situation might be a little different from yours - I EBF'd for the first year and was a SAHM, so we only ever used bottles once a day if that. Basically, at 11 months Jackson started to drop feedings, so I replaced the nursing session with a sippy cup that was half BM, half whole milk for the next "mealtime". At first he made me hold the sippy cup and pour it in his mouth - this got old. So I gave him the cup and let him experiment with it. It was messy, but after a few days, he wanted to be the one to pour it in his mouth.

At 11 months, 2 weeks (once he really got the hang of the cup) I packed up all of the bottles and put them in the garage. At every meal, Jackson got the half BM, and half whole milk. The ONLY nursing session I kept was his 5am session which I dropped on his 1st birthday. From that day on he was entirely whole milk out of a sippy cup. He has never tried to get a bottle again - it was a pretty easy transition.

~Lynchie~ · February 2011

The day after Holden's 1st bday we gave him sippies instead of bottles and we never looked back

We had already done sleep training at that time so he wasnt waking up in the middle of the night any more, so that wasnt a problem for us. Cold turkey is definitely the best option IMO!

MissLauraQ · February 2011

Both my kids did Cold Turkey on their 1st birthdays. I had introduced sippies around 9 months old with water, so they knew what to expect.

Never had a problem with either of them.. I hear the longer you wait after 12 months the harder it is to break (same goes for binkies)

StellaZ · February 2011

We weaned at 11mos ?- I heard before 1 year is best or its harder. We did sippy cups at meals for a month prior and then did cold turkey one weekend. It was a battle of wills but he finally gave up and it's been fine ever since. I must say I do not miss the bottles - or cleaning them! The type of sippy preference seems to vary - but we had success with the Playtex (and fewest leaks). Good luck!

kristalovesjared · February 2011

Thank Ladies! Looks like I just need to DO IT!

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