My daughter is 16 months and has always done great drinking from her bottle. At one her doctor said we should be transitioning from a bottle to sippy. 4 months later and we are still on the bottle. I will admit we have not really tried very hard. We have tried maybe once a month putting her milk in a sippy cup and all she does is scream and push the cup off her tray and absolutely refuse. We have given in up until now as she is a good eater and we didn't want to push it and force her to do it if she didn't want to. I think it is time to show some tough love. This morning she has absolutely refused milk from a sippy so we just skipped it and went on with breakfast.
Has anyone tried this "tough love" approach of saying you get your milk in a sippy or no milk at all? I was told by her doctor and therapist that she is smart and will learn fast that if she doesn't drink it from the cup she won't get any at all and will learn in a day or two if I am consistent or don't give in. They said her weight is fine and she is eating enough solids that not having milk for a couple of days won't harm her. I guess my fear is that this will become a habit and she will just say I won't ever drink milk then. Thoughts?
Any other approaches that have worked for people? Or do you strongly feel like she will just "grow out of the bottle" on her own? She won't drink juice from a sippy either though I am not going to force that. She will only drink milk from a sippy and only drink milk from a bottle. TIA!
Re: Weaning from bottle to sippy cup - Help!
DD2 8.22.13
MMC 1.4.17 at 16w
Expecting #3, EDD 1.29.18
I agree with PPs. Going a couple of days without milk during this transition won't harm your DD. The older she gets, the harder it's going to be to wean off bottles. I would quit giving her bottles all together.
This was our progression from bottle to sippy which took 4 months.
We started with a straw cup for water between his usual bottles. Then switched to having milk in the straw cup at lunch and dinner. Then switched the breakfast bottle to straw cup.
Just like with the straw cup, we switched out each meal with a sippy. The 1st sippy we used was the Nuby cup. Your LO really needs to do a sucking motion to get the liquid out. We now use a combination of the Nuby sippy and the Playtex sippys. LO does great with all of them and shows no preference.
We still give LO's bedtime milk in a bottle.