Questions about saying bye-bye to the baba

Re: Questions about saying bye-bye to the baba

• robnnoel

  March 2011

  Luckily my DS was not too attached to the bottle.  We cold turkey took it away the day before his first bday.  I dont think he cared one way or another what cup he drank out of as long as there was some milk in it. 

  Now the pacifier on the other hand is a different story.  We could have sent him to pacifier counseling. So I will tell you how we handled that.  We just took it away cold turkey one day about a month before his 3rd bday, but we did start phasing it out little by little.  We never really let him walk around with it all the time, only bedtime, naptime, and car rides, and when he was just laying around on the couch,  we had to hide it other times or he would go and get it.  We began by phasing out the car rides and laying around, and only letting him have it at nap and bedtime.  Once he was good with that we just took it away all together, again all that was left was nap and bed time. I am not going to lie, it was horrible.  It took about 3 days of naps and bedtime of crying and having a freakin cow about it before he finally settled down about it.  Sometimes at night he would be up till after midnight crying for it.  We just stuck to our guns and tried to comfort him the best we could.  What else we did was when we took the pacifier away we gave him a new pillow he could sleep with.  At first he could care less, but now he sleeps with that pillow every night. He does still ask for it, but I just tell him sorry but they are all gone.

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• kel716 member

  March 2011

  For us it was kind of the opposite.  It took what seemed like forever for him to give up the bottle.  He was closing in on 18 mos before he gave up the bedtime bottle.   We did successfully get him off of bottles except for naptime and bedtime, but he had to fall asleep with a bottle in his mouth.  Thus, it took a while.  Getting him to take a sippy was another challenge.  You could try cold turkey.. but if that doesn't work I'd go for getting rid of it during the day and aim for getting rid of the nighttime bottle within a few weeks.  GL

  The paci on the other hand was completely different.  About 22 mos, he just lost interest.  Within a month's time he went from needing 3 at all naps and bedtime (1 in his mouth and one in each hand) to not caring where it was.  One day he didn't fall asleep with it at naptime and I hid all of them.  I knew he had been losing interest, so I wasn't too concerned about how he'd react.  He never asked for them again.  So easy. 

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• hav2run

  March 2011

  We started getting rid of the bottle at 10 months, and started giving some cows milk at 11 months.  DD was a champ at the straw at 8 months, so she had some experience with straw cups.  I just gave water and formula in the cup, and put cows milk in her night time bottle.  I thought putting the new drink in the bottle was the best way to go, so if she declined, she also declined the bottle for the evening.  She did ok with cows milk.  By 13 months, we got rid of the night time comfort bottle, and she did fine with her cups.  She went all cows milk instead of formula then too.  i think it is good to do it all at once.  DD just did not care what she got to put her drink in, and I think it is because she was used to the straws well before we took away her bottle.  We went all in, and it worked very well. 
  

  
  
  

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• Jscaggs

  March 2011

  We limited it to bedtime at 1 yr and by 15 months it was gone entirely and she takes a juice cup to bed. 

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