Saying" Bye-bye Bottle!"

On my daughter's first birthday we went immediately to the sippie cups. We used the nubby ones (I think that's right). They were soft tipped, almost like a bottle. Once she was used to those we moved her to another style. She transitioned to each well. Good luck!

It'll be easier than you think if you don't worry about it! lol She might go without for a couple of days, but then she'll pick it up straight away. My oldest went from bottles to cups in just under a week...but no sippy cups. He flat out refused to drink from them from day one. He did, however, love to drink from cups with no lids. Yup, there were a few spills, but he picked it up completely in less than a week. I did the same with my other two, only using sippy cups and both were pretty much the same(the middle one was a bit tricky, we ended up giving one bottle back, but he had to lay down in the playpen to have it, no walking around with it...he quickly decided it wasn't worth it! lol).

My daughter was the same... would drink anything but milk/formula from the sippy cup. So I offered her a straw. That was the magic she needed... Now she gets a kick from picking the straw color. Seems to make her excited to drink it.

J.,
hello my name is M. im 22 and i have a 2 year old she will be 3 on the 10th of august. i took her off of her bottle when she was 1 and what i did was try a whole bunch of different brands of sippy cups. what i did was keep the bottle out sight of mind except for 1 which was in a really high spot so thats its not noticeable just in case she goes crazy. you might want to try a lil cup that comes with a straw so that she can fell like shes a big girl drinking out of her own cup with a straw. theres a litlle bit of advice i hope it works if u try it and good luck.

Hi I have two boys 5 and 1 and the older one never gave me a problem with the bottle it was gone by his first birthday. Now my little one we had a little trouble hes a real strong willed boy we just got rid of the bottle over the last month.
Some things that worked for me....Get the bottles out of sight. If my son sees it in the house he thinks he can still use it. You will have some probles in the evening if there use to having a bottle at bed time but distract them read a book help sooth her so she wont even notice she doesent have a bottle. I also highly recomend the nuby sippy cup with the soft silicone spout its a good transition to start with it like a bottle because the spout is soft but its a sippy cup!
Thats what we use now and so far so good. He use it mostly at night and hes even drinking from a regular cup will a little bit of what ever liquid you offer. Well Hope this helps. You can find the nuby sippy cup at most stores they are mostly sold at walmart.

I did it cold turkey with bottles and binkies. I did bottles at 1 year and binkies at 15 months. We had a rough day or two with the binkies, but she could care less about the bottles. Good luck!!

My son quit the pacifer and his bottle cold turkey. I just tried the bottle one day and he never cried or looked back. We were very lucky. I did have a couple of different sippy cups waiting just incase....different colors, one with a straw, ones with different characters on it. Hopefully your little one will be easy as well. If she is already doing it with her other liquids I bet she will catch on very quickly. Once she realizes that is where her milk is from now on...then she will adjust. If you give her the bottle when she starts to cry..then she will know that works and will keep crying until she gets the bottle. Good luck!!

Both of my girls have loved the Nuby sippy cups. They have silicone so kind of like the bottle. My youngest wanted a sippy cup very early because she saw her big sister had them but as someone said - she couldn't suck hard enough to get anything plus she doesn't likethe hard ones when she is teething. It was not tramatic for us...jsut happened. I do agree witht he - out of sight advice though...get them gone!

I don't really remember my first two kids- it was no big deal- the bottle just wasn't available during the day at first and then after a bit I just gave them sippy cups at night- don't remember any trauma. But with my third one- she used her (empty) bottle as a "lovey" at night- I figured she would never give it up. I was talking about this to my friend while we were at her house and she turned to my almost 1 yr old daughter and said "Kay, you're a big girl. Big girls drink out of cups. I bet you don't need that bottle." My daughter solemnly nodded and I pretty much forgot about it. When we got home, that little baby went to the bottle drawer, took the bottles out and tossed them in the trash. (I went behind her later and pulled a couple out- JUST IN CASE!) That night she asked for her bottle and I said "Oh, don't you rememeber? You threw them away." She nodded and never used one again. So this may be more of a trauma for you than it is for her........And obviously even at this very young age- they understand a lot more than we usually give them credit for...

We tried at least 10 different sippy cups in order to get our daughter off the bottle, but she just refused. Finally one weekend we packed up all the bottles basically saying to her, if you want milk you will drink it out of this cup. She figured it out and made the transition fairly smoothly thanks to the Nuby cups that I think are most like a bottle. Now she drinks like a big girl from all kinds of sippy cups and straws. Good luck!

Hi J. - I weaned my 2 kids from bottles just after they both turned 1. I think I felt like you in that the longer I waited to wean my kids, the harder it would be - so I started doing it right at 1. There's so much advice out there to take, but I think the most important thing is to feel-out your daughter first. If she will already take water & juice in a sippy that's great! Do that all the time. Then wean her from taking milk in a bottle. Stick to her normal routine - if she has milk first thing in the morning try giving her that milk in a sippy first. It might take a couple days before she takes it but she'll adjust. Once she's accepted that, then change her next 'milk time' to a sippy, and keep changing every 3 -4 days. After a couple weeks (or 3 - 4) she'll be off - depending on how quickly she accepts each change. My boy did fine taking a sippy during the day, but wanted his bottle before bed-time for quite awhile. Be patient, don't push it, and remember they won't be on the bottle forever. Hope this has helped :-)

Hi J.,

Both my kids went cold turkey from bottle to cup. My daughter (older) had a bit of a battle of wills, but we basically did what other responders did and hid the bottle, offered only the cup, and emphasized "big girl". Took about a day and she was all cups -- however, I soon noticed she was having some trouble, like she was always trying to suck off the spout of the cup. So, I tried a cup with a straw, and she was happy with that. My son went straight to the cup, no problem, but I think he modeled after his big sister (though he uses a sippy cup, not a straw).

One thing with my son -- he refused milk in the cup, too. He'd drink water fine, but would absolutely turn away from the milk. At first I thought it was the cup, but it turns out that it was milk -- just didn't like it. So I asked our doctor and she recommended trying soy milk because it was sweeter and some kids just don't like the taste of milk. So I tried that and he loved it, so we used that for a while (I'd actually mix a little cow milk in with it). After about five months, I saw him steal his sister's cup and drink regular milk, so I said, okay, try your own cup! and he's had regular milk ever since. Don't know why he suddenly switched, but he did! Hope this helps & good luck!

They make those take and toss cups that are just a bunch of different colored cups and lids. They are real simple and don't require alot of the strong sucking that other cups do. I began by offering my daughter the cups at meal times with maybe with an ounce of milk. I saved the night time bottle for last, after she had really mastered the cup. Hope this helps!

My daughter just turned one a couple of weeks ago and hasn't had a bottle since the day after she turned one. For the first week, I gave her milk in a soft tip silicone sippy cup. Now, I just give her the soft tip silicone sippy cup for her milk in the morning when she's waking up. All the rest of the day, I try to give her the hard tip sippy cups, and she usually does pretty well on them. My problem now is the pacifier. She won't let that go...lol. Hope that helps.

Hey J.,
We went cold turkey with our daughter on her first birthday and didn't give her anymore bottles. She didn't like to drink milk out of it right away but after two days milk was too much of a commodity to miss out on and she gave in. She didn't like the nubby cups because she would just chew on them, she needed the hard plastic ones in order to actually drink anything. Like everyone says, every kid is different! Just wanted to give you some encouragement!

I used a Nuby sippy cup with a straw like spout made of silicone for my daughter milk. It took some time so I still offered a bottle in the AM. Within like 2 weeks it was done. Good luck!!

The no spill sippy cups require a strong sucking power that some babies don't master right away. Just be sure to be prepared to offer several different styles of cups in case one is too difficult for your little one. Also, be prepared to offer a cup all day long. It's much harder for some to get the amount of fluids they need out of a cup because they typically just take a few sips at a time.

This is what worked for us. At 12 months my dd was taking 3 bottles at daycare. So I started replacing one bottle with a sippy cup. She mostly refused, but sometimes took it, but never drank the whole bottle. After a month or so, I sent 2 sippy cups, 1 bottle. After another month or so she had all sippy cups at daycare. However, she was still getting one bottle of milk before bed ( I was also breastfeeding, but trying to swith to whole milk too). So a little before 18 months, I gave her night time milk in a sippy cup. She took a few sips and didn't drink it. I was scared to death that she was going to wake up starving, so I poured it into a bottle and she sucked it all down. LOL. That kind of made me mad. So the next night she got her sippy cup, and she drank half of it. So I said, she'll survive. Next night she finished every drop in her sippy cup and never had another bottle. So It was a process for us, we nursed and had cups so I don't know if it would be the same for a strictly bottle fed baby.

Good luck.

good luck!! i had to get my 9m off the bottle so he could have surgery on a cleft palate, i stressed so much over it because it HAD to be done, i tried to wean him off and he knew if he cried long enough he'd get a bottle so we went cold turkey, he cried for 1 whole day and part of the night and he's done. he uses the nubi sippy cups, they seem to work the best because he actually "chews" instead of sucks on them. hope this helps and good luck!!

Both of my kids were bottle fed from rather early and they both gave up the bottle like it was no big deal. My main suggestion would be don't put the "fun stuff" in a bottle. In our family, the rule was bottles were for feeding and only feeding. Trust me... you don't give it to them they won't have one. I would start backing off on the number of bottles per day now and then she will get used to not having them so much. It is very hard but you are mom and if you say the bottles are gone, then get rid of them and go to the cup. It really isn't as hard as you may think its going to be. Trust me, that is the one day that I was dreading was how to get my son off bottles and everytime we took one away, it was really no big deal to him. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

I have the answer!!! LOL
Before my daughter turned one we used the playtex sippy cups with side handles in the day and bottles only at night. I kept the bottles out of her sight and eventually (on yoru time, you'll know) gave her the cup instead of the bottle. By this time she was used to the cup and it was not a big deal. I definitely recommend starting off with the playtex sippies with the handles b/c they are soft, easy to hold and see through. Eventually use Nuby b/c they don't leak like the next step playtex cups.
Good luck

Leading up to my daughter's first birthday, we matter of factly told her that she was going to be a "big girl" on her birthday. We told her big girls drink from sippy cups and the bottles go away.
We did not make a big deal out of it. We let her pick out the sippy cup she would "get" to use 2 weeks before her birthday, but did not allow her to officialy use it. We placed the cup in the kitchen like it was a trophy and let her hold it if she asked.
The night before her birthday, I threw away all of the bottle stuff. The morning of her birthday I asked her if she wanted juice or milk in her sippy cup with breakfast. She chose milk. She acted as though it was no big deal and we did not make a big deal out of it.
She was given other sippy cups as gifts for her birthday and she was then excited to be able to choose which sippy cup she wanted to use at each meal.
We always found that with our daughter, if you just did not make a big deal out of things, and gave her some choices, she did pretty good with change. Give it a try and see how your child does. I bet she will be excited and will do fine. Good luck.

I weaned my twins...But I started at 6 months by just leaving the cup on their tray to either drink out of or not. By the time they turned one they were drinking out the sippy cups at meal/snack times and only had the bottle just before bed time...As they never took a bottle to bed, it was a simple thing to do the big "okay we are going to give the bottles to the baby angel and she will take them to needy babies" thing. She left them each a brand new sippy cup with their favorite character design (at the time it was Dora and Diego) and that was what they used to replace the bottle times just before bed and nap time.

While weaning I would leave the sippy cup full of juice, water, or milk on the tray and offer it after every bite. If they didn't want it, fine, we set it down and went on to the next bite, no big deal. When the meal/snack was over I left them with the cup for about 20 min. If they drank it great, otherwise they got their bottle at bed or naptime...After a couple of days they began drinking out of their cups so they didn't miss the drink at meal/snack times..

Good Luck!! ;-)

Try a straw instead of a sippy cup. It is better for her and more convenient in the future. I can give you specifics on how to start this if you want, just let me know. All 3 of my kids were drinking from a straw by the time they were 1.

Hi J.,

Parent Coach J. B here with a question - are you willing to see if your daughter is ready for this? Experts recommend a parent balance the need to get off the bottle for the health and alignment of the teeth with the very real need to suck on something to self-soothe.

Here's a quote from parenttime.com, " Don't rush. You may get your child 85% weaned, and worry about giving her a bottle at night. (Once your baby has teeth, bottles for napping or sleeping should only have water; milk or juice can cause tooth decay). Sucking is a primal instinct; children sometimes need to suck to feel soothed. Don't throw out something that can help your child feel secure; some children may use bottles occasionally for three years after weaning, and that's okay."

When you both are ready, the advice to try several different styles of cup is a good one. We used a cup that had a straw incorporated in the lid. It worked well. Remember this can be a gradual, gentle process. Start by substituting the cup in place of the bottle one feeding at a time - during the day. It is great to start with any meals or snacks when your daughter is already having food. Then move to daytime naps and finally substitute the evening bottle because this is often the most loved by youngsters.

Remember to offer extra liquids, lots of cuddles and encourage her to love on a favorite blanket or luvee - she will need all of this as she transitions.

This can be a wonderful transition into early toddlerhood. Good luck!

Parent Coach J. B

We have 2 children and this worked with both. During the day give your daughter just a sippe cup now and do not offer the bottle. Keep one in sight at all times (be sure to monitor her intake due to hydration reasons). In the evening give her the bed time bottle before she lays down. First thing in the morning pick the sippee cup up with her morning milk (or whatever she drinks). You have many different ways offered here...hope one work on a smooth transition for you and your daughter!

When it was time for us to stop the bottle with my daughter my sister in law had come to visit on their way to Germany with the Air Force. We told my daugher she was a big girl and did not need her bottles anymore. We also showed her pictures of children in Germany and told her the babys there needed her bottles.

We let her watch us pack everything up and put the bottles in the car. Everytime she wanted a bottle we reminded her that she was a big girl and where the bottles had gone.

My son is now five... Our pediatrician recommended doing away with the bottle at our 1 year check up! We did exactly that. It really wasn't a problem for Zachary. We let him carry around a cup of water all the time. He thought that was cool because he had been on a pretty good schedule and had not had free reign with the bottle. He was still on formula at the time, but switched him to milk easily as well. Since he had the water whenever he wanted, he now still drinks lots of water. He only drinks milk before bed and sometimes for breakfast and juice is a treat not something he drinks all the time. If you are having trouble, you might want to try different cups - some of them are very hard to suck.

Good luck!
L.

At about 11 1/2 months we quit cold turkey w/ our little girl. She did fine. We gave her only 1 bottle at night for only 2 days before that, and then on the 3rd day it was only sippy cups. She fussed a little, but she got over it and moved on to the sippy cups.
Every baby is different though.
Good luck!!!