Advice on Weaning from the Bottle...

My son is 11 months old now and has been off of the bottle for about 3 weeks. We started out by only giving him a bottle in the morning and a sippy cup for the rest of the day. I used the Nuby sippy cup with a "straw" which is the closest thing to a nipple. After about a week I tried giving him a sippy cup in the morning and he took it. After about 2 1/2 weeks I tried the sippy cups with a spout and he took to them as well. I hope that this helps.

I know that whatever you do, do it SOON. Over the next couple months is when he'll get REALLY attached to it.
I have a friend who did the switch "cold turkey" with each of her 5 girls. They can't hold out for long, and as long as he's eating, he won't dehydrate. Maybe be sure to offer "watery" foods during the transition -- watermelon, applesauce, etc.

We actually began the transition with ours at 11 months but offering cups during the day and a bottle just in the morning. We just dropped the bottle around the first birthday and it wasn't an issue since they were already used to cups. Our favorite cups for the transition were the old fashioned Tupperware kind that have just a lid with a spout (no valve). There are other brands -- the Take 'N' Toss are good, and Especially for Baby make some.
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=240364...
The cups with the no-spill valves are made so that you have to suck pretty hard to get anything out (I personally tried them all because ours also refused them at first), so that's why we went with the simple ones.
Good luck!

You will have to let him get thirsty enough to use the sip cups but do it gradually.

I started giving a bottle of milk first think in the morning. Then milk at nap time, juice or water the rest of the day and milk at bed time. Maybe at first give only the milk in the bottle at those times and then start replacing the milk in the sip cup one at a time until the bottle is gone.

Good luck.

Get him a sippy cup that has a really soft top. I think Gerber has some, but this is what I had to get for my daughter to drink from a sippy cup. The first one I got her had a hard top and she didn't like it, so I got her a soft one and she loved it.