transitioning to milk

robynss · May 2012

So, do any of you know how to do this??? We don't have our 1 year apptmt until 2 weeks later but I am getting nervous about the transition. Any one know how this whole thing goes down from having 3 bottles a day... to milk and sippy cups!?!?!

M&M227 · May 2012

Our pedi said once she's 1 we can do it however we like. We can mix formula and milk or swap out one bottle at a time. He wasn't really concerned how we did it. I'm pretty nervous, she still takes 4 bottles and I'm nervous that she's getting enough calories.

mom6311 · May 2012

I'm right there with you on learning how to do this! Also...at what point do you make the morning bottle part of their breakfast and take the bedtime bottle away? I'm just nervous about it all!

MrsPBNJ0220 · May 2012

I'm nervous as well, and part of me wants to start the milk transition before the sippy transition. I have tried every type of sippy cup under the sun and none seem to work for DS. So I have considered just doing the milk transition first, which may be most difficult because of his allergies anyway. Then after that do the sippy transition, and perhaps I have considered the idea of letting him control when he does and does not have a sippy as long as he isn't overdoing it I'm not to worried about when he takes them, but rather that he is taking them.

It really does make me super nervous though, I have no clue what to do, and when it comes to actually doing something that will upset him (like doing the switch when he does not want to) I don't want to do it. :-/

LaRue86 · May 2012

We are through both switches. Our pedi recommended to not give Milk in a bottle and only in a sippy.

We actually ditched the bottle back at the end of February/ beginning of March. He was sick and was refusing a bottle so I poured it into a sippy cup and he took it like a champ. We never switched back tot he bottle.

We use the NUK brand sippys and they have been great.

If you are going from FF to WCM, it should be an easy transition as WCM is alot sweeter than FF, but you can also do a transition to get them used to the taste. I would mix at a 1:3 ratio, than 1:1 ratio, and then a 3:1 ratio and the just WCM.

We did the transition from BM to Almond Milk and now to Hemp Milk.

Also, when we started the transition our pedi said really he only needs about 16-20 oz a day, I am pretty sure I looked at her like she had six eyes. I thought, WTH, how am I going to get him from 36 to 16/20oz a day. He now gets 4-5oz bottles a day. He gets the first about 30 minutes after he wakes up, he gets one at Noon, one at 4, and one at 7.30. We offer a sippy with water the rest of the day. It took about 2 weeks to cut 16oz a day out. We introduced a morning snack when he would have gotten his first bottle (usually mandarin oranges or some other fruit).

egpitt22 · May 2012

We haven't made the transition with Liam yet, but I'll give you our experience with our older son. At that time, he was nursing in the morning, taking 2 bottles at daycare (around 10am and 2pm), then nursing at night (with 3 regular meals in between)

I decided to start with dropping the bottles first, rather than the nursing sessions. I asked at daycare which bottle he seemed to care less about, they said the morning one, so I decided that would be the best one to start with. Instead of giving him a bottle at 10am, they gave him a snack with some water instead. After a few days of him being ok with that, I had them do the same thing with the afternoon bottle. He was really into table foods, so he didn't really seem to care about the lack of bottles.

As far as introducing milk, I mixed breastmilk with some cow's milk (I had a decent size freezer stash, so I ended up doing this for awhile, just so that it wouldn't go to waste) When my freezer stash started to dwindle, I mixed in more WCM, less BM until eventually, he was taking straight cow's milk in the sippy. He usually took the sippy cups of milk with meals, sippy cups of water with snacks...so it's not like I was giving him a sippy cup of milk to drink all at once or to serve as a meal, does that make sense?

When he first started with the sippy cups, I felt like he was not drinking much at all, maybe 2 oz with each meal. The dr told me not to worry, that eventually he'd start to drink more (which he did) and that as long as he was getting dairy from other sources (yogurt, cheese, cottage cheese, etc...)he would be fine.

That was super long, but I hope that helps!

Telly21182 · May 2012

LaRue86:
Also, when we started the transition our pedi said really he only needs about 16-20 oz a day, I am pretty sure I looked at her like she had six eyes. I thought, WTH, how am I going to get him from 36 to 16/20oz a day.

This is what I'm nervous about! Kid LOVES his bottles! You said it took a few weeks to cut out 16-oz. How did you go about doing this? Just slowly removing one of the BM feedings? LIke take away one every x days until he's eating 3x a day? Right now Ty is eating 5 bottles a day, anywhere from 4-7oz each, but usually 6-7. (So usually 30-35oz)

heyemilina · May 2012

We just started now, with the ok from the pedi (he is 11 months). I BF and pump at work and my pumping output hasn't been very good lately, so I started topping off his bottles with WCM (about 3 oz BM to 2 oz WCM) for daycare. I plan to do this until I'm off for the summer (June 7) and might drop a pump session in there too so eventually it will be more WCM. I also asked them to start giving him his milk in a sippy now. I'm still going to nurse him 3x a day at home but once school is out I'll start dropping those sessions. My plan is to offer milk at meals and maybe a snack or so and then water the rest of the day.

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