Help.. I cant get my 21 month old off the bottle

heatherfaith · October 2016

I think I waited too long to take it away. Hes super attatched now. Cries for it when I try to give him milk in a cup. any tips would be appreciated.

oneblessedmess · October 2016

I think you can try a few things:

-Very slowly, start diluting the milk in his bottle with water, so he's getting less and less actual milk. In the meantime, keep offering the cup filled with regular milk. The hope is he will take a sip and realize the stuff in the cup is better than the stuff in the bottle.

-Try different sippy cups. Some have spouts that are more similar to a bottle than others. He may need a gradual transition with a softer spout.

-Try making the milk in the cup "special" with something like food coloring. Hopefully that will encourage him to drink it. Once he's established with the cup, then over time you can lessen the coloring until he's just drinking milk again.

Mack2342 · October 2016

i agree with pp about diluting. That worked for us. It took about two weeks and he was off bottle. Our ped told me to just take away completely and not offer it any more but I couldn't do that he was just one when she told us that. The transition with the water in milk worked and it only took about two weeks. During that time I stopped giving it to him during the day. If he didn't see the bottle he didn't cry for it. So I hid them all. We also had to try several sippy cups. For my son he wouldn't take anything with a tip. He will only use the 360 cups.

growingournest · November 2016

We struggled with this too- turns out that my little guy just hates sippy cups. He LOVES (and drinks really well out of) the toddler cups that have the flexible straws attached. Like others said, we ended up just completely hiding the bottles and only offered the straw sippy cups- he never cried for them again!

andrawrmeda2 · December 2016

Were struggling with this currently. daddy uses the bottle as a crutch since I work 2nd shift and he's home with him at night. I'm going to try diluting it, it's weird cause he takes and sippy fine at nap time or doesn't take anything but at bed time he just screams

Mack2342 · December 2016

@andromedacorrine. I would try diluting it and decreasing the amount you give him at bed time. I did that with my LO. I reduced it til I was down to 2 oz and then I just didn't offer it any more. I don't think he even fussed about it at that point. He was only getting the night when he would wake. Once I stopped giving him the bottle at night he finally started sleeping through the night. It's worth a try

andrawrmeda2 · December 2016

Mack2342 said:

@andromedacorrine. I would try diluting it and decreasing the amount you give him at bed time. I did that with my LO. I reduced it til I was down to 2 oz and then I just didn't offer it any more. I don't think he even fussed about it at that point. He was only getting the night when he would wake. Once I stopped giving him the bottle at night he finally started sleeping through the night. It's worth a try

We are for sure going to give that a try, tonight I got him to sleep with a sippy of milk and rocking him, usually I try to give him the 5 ounce bottles though. But I am due in 5 weeks and I have got to get rid of them, cause otherwise he'll be stealing sissy's bottles!!! Its just super hard, cause I had to stop BFing sooner than I wanted and I didn't even want him to take a bottle at night, he didn't get one till 11 months and then we never tried to take them back ugh.

Mack2342 · December 2016

@andromedacorrine. I hope you find a solution. I stopped nursing earlier too to try and get pregnant. So he went straight to bottle. I stopped cold turkey basically. He got bottles tho during the day as I work so that really wasn't a big deal for him. It was harder for me lol. I started transitioning him to sippy cups during the day at around 9 months. He would only get bottle at night. Then I did that weaning off the night bottle. We were able to totally cut bottle by the time he turned 1. I did this to get him to sleep through the night. He would wake every night about the same time so I knew it was just a habit. Maybe when the new little one arrives you can tell him that the bottles are for his baby sister. I don't know. Good luck with the transition and the new LO!

andrawrmeda2 · December 2016

Well it's gotten a little better, Daddy needs to find a way ro get him to sleep with out the bottle though. Dad's using it as a crutch more than DS is. But the last couple weeks have gotten easier as hell shove it away himself and the. Go to sleep. So we're getting rid of it, just alot slower than I wanted. Thank you for the help though!!! And the congrats

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