Post #512 about taking bottles away

legalbeagle1 · November 2013

For those of you who have done it, did you just go cold turkey? We are on day #2 of no bottles during the day and only at night. Day #1 was not so successful -- he loves sipping water through a straw but not milk. He drank seven ounces of milk before bed -- about average. I don't want him to get dehydrated or not enough calcium/Vitamin D, but am wondering if the no bottles during the day rule is confusing/not helpful since the worst part is milk overnight on his teeth.

lady dixneuf · November 2013

is this really super important that you do this now?

hilsy85 · November 2013

lady dixneuf said:

is this really super important that you do this now?

I agree, our pedi was pretty relaxed about it...said they usually don't talk about it til 15 months. Is he still waking overnight to eat?

legalbeagle1 · November 2013

Fair question. Pedi recommended trying to stop bottles now and definitely by 15 mos. I was reading something about bottles/sippy cups/pacis and suckling action isn't recommended by speech therapists so thought I would give it a try to move directly to straw cups since L doesn't have any words. And generally, all the therapies cause me to operate in a super paranoid space where I think I'm messing up my kid for sure!

Edit: @hilsy not waking up in middle of night to eat. Just the bedtime routine bottle.

stephcarter · November 2013

I'm with ya on this one @legalbeagle1. My doc said she'd like to see her off bottles by 15 months (her next checkup) but I'm struggling. She will drink water from a straw all day but if I give her milk in a cup she spits it out!! She gets a bottle before each nap and bed but we give her the bottle, she drinks it, then we take her up and put her in pjs and read a book then put her to bed. I worry that if I don't give her that bottle she either won't sleep or wake up screaming and starving. Plus she wouldn't be getting any milk

no advice, but let me know if you figure it out.

StefanieM522 · November 2013

It took us about 3 weeks to transition away from bottles during the day and only before bed and when he wakes up. My pedi said to try and get rid of bottles by 15 months but she will not be concerned until 18 months. We slowly started switching one bottle with a sippy each day until he only has them before bed. This morning he wanted his sippy instead of his bottle when he woke up. Good luck he will figure it out on his own soon. I personally don't care if he wants a bottle before bed. To me he is still a baby. He is only a year old.

ThatWasAHoot · November 2013

From a childcare providers perspective, it is important. Children who have bottles longer tend to have delayed speech, sometimes even later into their toddler years.

But from a mom's perspective, our baby was born with eating problems. She had to relearn to eat like 4 times. That being said, transitioning from bottle to cup was no easy task. Our SLP gave us a good recommendation, though, and it worked! We used the Nuby transition bottle/cup. It comes with a nipple attachment and a sippy cup attachment so you can change them out when you think they're ready. We started by giving her the milk in the nipple attachment and she was fine with it. Then we changed her over to the sippy and she was physically able to drink from it, so we were good! We found the Nuby straw cups to be awesome, too, after the first transition.
GL

tamararachel2 · November 2013

We do only one bottle of milk right before bed. He has no problem with a sippy cup or straw cup, he just doesn't like the straw cup that much. I'm guessing I need to change it to a sippy cup of milk before bed soon enough, but for the day bottles it was pretty much cold turkey.

LorMor · November 2013

Oops. We've only just introduced a bottle.

legalbeagle1 · November 2013

@BeaF12 Omg no need to be sorry. I really did think it was a fair question for people to ask why I am so focused on it. Good idea about no valve sippy -- I didn't realize that made a difference!

Thanks for reminding me to try regular cups, guys. We had been trying that a few months ago but then he learned the honey bear straw and I forgot about it. Maybe a good way to get fluids in.

PixelPosy · November 2013

We did not go cold turkey, but we are now bottle free. Basically, I offered a sippy of warm milk with each meal towards the end of it. For some reason if I offered it too early it made her mad, she was much more receptive to trying the drink after she's had some food. It still ended up on the floor A LOT, but she slowly started drinking more of it. I dropped a bottle a week and replaced it with sippy only. The night time bottle was last. Now she has that milk with dinner and does fine. I haven't switched to cold milk yet. My pedi also recommended no bottles by 15 months, so no worries if you and LO aren't quite ready, plenty of time.

chricast · November 2013

@LorMor we just stated bottle too. It was the only way I could get her to drink any milk after we stopped breastfeeding. I've tried getting her to drink her milk from a sippy with no luck; I'm just going to keep trying.

ac1259 · November 2013

TBH I think the only reason she isn't off bottles completely is because I keep giving her them..we only do one in the morning and one at bedtime otherwise it's all cups but we were at her grandparents' last night until later and she had her milk just in her straw cup and then went to sleep fine when we got home...I think I'm just trying to keep her little longer:( but I think my goal is no bottles by the time baby sister arrives and I think I could easily do that like this week. She takes anything well from a straw cup so I don't have that issue, she drinks plenty of milk! I should probably just suck it up and take the bottle away:(

hpoff33 · November 2013

We only give my son a bottle at night when I am working which is usually 1-2 nights per week. Otherwise it is all sippy cups, all the time. I don't even think we followed a set plan, honestly. One day we just stopped giving him milk in bottles. Water had always been offered in a sippy. We had zero issues with the transition.

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