Breaking the Bottle Habit

Hello there, i understand how hard it can be my lil girl drank a bottle till she was three!! so trust me i know. If you go to walmart the have sippy cups that look like bottles, they are the nuby ones, you will see them, they worked GREAT!!

My son also hated the sippy cup until I found the Nuby sippy cup. It has a very soft top almost like a bottle. It is good because it does not leak and it is easier to transition to a soft flexible top at first. My son will drink from pretty much anything now. They are also some the least expensive out there.

I recommend trying the soft nipple sippy cups from walmart, they are like a dollar and they are so simalar to a bottle that my daughter didnt even know the difference when I switched her.. After she was taking the soft sippy cup for a while then I switched her to a regular sippy cup..

Dear E.,
I had a very similar problem with my daughter. I let her have her bottle at night (and only at night) for a longer time, because I thought it won't harm her. Later (when she was almost 3) I one day took it away with the explanation that the bottles were old and broken and that only babies drink out of them. This was rough for a couple of nights, but not really dramatic. I guess I could have done that earlier. My now almost 5-yr-old is totally fine and of course bottle-free. My experience is that many of this give-up problems almost solve themselves when you give the kids some more time. But I know that I am too laid back for some parents' tastes - it has been my experience though, that you fight something, and later, it almost solves itself with little effort. GOOD LUCK whatever way you go! Best, A..

You just have to keep pushing the sippy cup and keep the bottles out of sight. good luck

Hi there, I understand your situation. My daughter was a breast fed preemie, when I finally switched her to bottles because she was biting with teeth, she became completely attached! I started putting water in her bottle instead of milk. I told her if she wanted the milk she could have it in a cup. She got mad and would throw the bottle. But that was the point. I replaced it with classical baby music to soothe her and petting her forehead and eyes. I also made it a big deal to have a stuffed animal to hold. She's the most stubborn child I've ever met, so if it helped her, maybe it can help your little one. Good luck! :D

My daughter wouldn't take a sippy cup either. I found Nuby straw cups that have a really soft "nipple/spout" part and a straw that goes all the way to the bottom of the cup. She fell in love with them! She prefers drinking from the straw over the sippy cups! I found them at Wal-Mart. Hope this helps.

Hi there. I used those NUBY cups when I took my little one off the bottle. They are fairly bottle-like. The part where the child puts their mouth is nipple-like. This probably sounds funny, but to describe them, they are plastic, long and have a flat top with the "nipple" sticking up. They come in all different colors. You can get them just about anywhere. I started putting her milk in it when she was about 11 months old and she hasn't had a bottle since! She's 18 months now! Good luck!

My son is 16 months old. I had him off the bottle around 13 months but then he got really sick and would only use the bottle to drink. I cant seem to get him to let it go again. He does only take it at nap and bed time so I am not really worried about it. I may try again and take it away for nap time and leave the night time bottle alone for awhile. HAve your tried different types of sippy cups. she may find one that she likes. I just got my son new ones and he seems to really like them. Gl

I guess I am lucky that my daughter never really had a definite attachment to the bottle. I never got her in the habit of a bedtime bottle, either, because of what it does to their teeth. She goes to daycare and was only allowed to drink the bottle in a highchair, so I think that has a lot to do with it. I really didn't have a choice on getting her to take a sippy cup - once she moved from the infant room to the toddler room, only sippys are used. Luckily, we pretty much did it cold turkey over the weekend, and she adapted pretty quickly. We use the Nuby Soft Spout easy grip sippys - she is still a little sloppy, but takes all her fluids out of a sippy. The way we looked at it was that if we consistently only offered the sippy, she would figure out that it was the only way she was getting something to drink and she'd rather use the sippy than go thristy. Obviously, we wouldn't let her go thirsty, but in our experience, it worked. You have to be consistent and not give in. I couldn't imagine having a walking, talking baby still using a bottle (but that's just me!)

My son, (who is turning a year at the end of the month) has been using his sippy cup since he was 8 months. That has helped alot for drinks between bottles.. I use the gerber ones and he really loves them. He got sick about three weeks ago and he couldn't have a bottle of milk for a couple of days..Doctors orders. We just gave him clear liquids in his sippy cup. He did really well. He has not went back to his bottle since then. I got really lucky. I would just start cutting back on the number of bottles given and try different sippy cups until you find one she likes. Hope this helps. C.

I had the same problem with my daughter. What I did was I only put water in the bottle and the sippy cup was for milk and juices, since she wanted the milk and the juice she opted for the cup. At bed time she too fell asleep with her bottle of milk, when I did the switch, I still gave her the bottle at bedtime and naptime, but with water in it. It didn't take her long to give up the bottle because she didn't want to lay there and drink a bottle of water....good luck!

Well in my opinion, after having 2 kids with an attachment to the bottle- if she only takes it at nap time, I wouldn't worry about it yet.
If she drinks her other drinks from a sippy cup and doesn't walk around with a bottle hanging from her mouth. I think it's fine
My first son LOVED his bottle. He would have it for 5 min. max. (if that) at nap/bed time. Other than that he never asked for it. I did try weaning ____@____.com just would not drink ANY milk. And I thought it was important he had it so I gave in after about a week.
He ended up weaning himself going down to just a nighttime bottle. then when he was between 2.5-3 He said he didn't want it anymore "too big". He is now 5 and LOVES milk in a regular cup.
My 2nd one liked the bottle but LOVED his paci. He stopped the bottle at 2 and gave up the paci at a little over 2.5. It really did soothe them.

Hope this helps.

first of all, giving her milk right before nap time is going to ruin her teeth. the water trick is a good idea but if you let her use the bottle , youd better start saving for braces and lots of dental bill because when they drink and then go to sleep, bacteria just eats up their little teeth. what i did with both of my sons is I helped them put all of their bottles in a grocery bag and we wen to the toys store and they could trade in all the bottles for a toy. we talked about it for several weeks before the big day. they both had a great time shopping for just the right toy. when we got home and it was time for the bottle and they asked for it, I would just hand them the toy and remind them we had left all the bottles in exchange for the toy. i know they are both boys, they are now 17 and 28 yrs old but we also had tea parties. we would sit and i would take out my china cups and tea pots and we would have snacks and juice or flavored herbal teas. they learned about manners and they really liked using mommys pretty cups. . then wouyld sue coffe cups to drink out of during meals because it was just like our tea parties. i bought some cheap plastic cups for them to use and painted their names on them and they looked forward to using those cups. during active times i gave them water bottles with the pull up tops to avoid spills. i figured if i offered a variety of containers they wouldnt go form one habit to another by using sippy cups.

The mom who said about water in the bottle had a really good idea. I will try that when my kids are ready (for now they are only 5 months and still need the botle, otherwise they wouldn't get ANY nutrition). Maybe also try to cut down on how much you put in the bottle. Start by removing one ounce every couple of days, or once a week. Then when you get down to one ounce, tell her, "Oops, no more! If you want more, then there is some in this sippy cup, want to try it?" Hope that helps.

My son was the same way, had to have that bottle but occassionally would take the sippy cup. I know you would like to try to take her off slowly but sometimes it doesn't work. With my son, he had bit the nipple of the bottle so hard that he split it wide open, so we told him that sorry no more bottle and let him throw it away and it broke him of it and had used a sippy cup after that. I think it showed him doing it himself that the bottle was broken and that him throwing it away re-assured him that mommy wasn't hiding it from him. I did the same thing with the pacifier, I actually cut it with Scissors and told him the dog got to it and had him thow it away too and it broke him of the pacifier. I hope this helps.