My baby is celebrating her 1st birthday this week! I tend to go "cold turkey" and get rid of bottles, and I will be so glad to be done with washing bottles every night and making bottles for daycare (yippee!). She has been drinking from sippy cups just fine. She is our third child, but I honestly can't remember how to handle the mornings and bedtime once bottles are gone. She'll get milk with meals and water with snacks, but do we give her a sippy cup of milk first thing in the morning just as we give her a bottle or do we get her dressed and get her on a more regular schedule like her siblings? Same thing at night: do we give her a cup of milk right before bed? It really relaxes her, so I'm guessing it will take more to settle her down and transition to bedtime without the nighttime bottle. Thanks!
It sounds like you already know the answer to your own question! The transition is different for each child, but it sounds like going cold turkey will work. If the milk helps to settle her down before bed, then give her her sippy while you read a goodnight story. Just make sure to brush her teeth afterward.
I don't know, neither of mine will drink milk from a sippy cup. I have tried and tried and the only way they will drink milk is from a bottle. They will drink everything else from a sippy.....I am looking at your answers to get help...Good luck!
I think I got super lucky with my daughter...we decided to transition to milk first - so after her 12 month visit and approval from the pediatrician, we started putting milk in her bottle - she took to it fine (just didn't like it cold) {here's a tip a friend of mine did that worked well for her...she started adding a little bit of cold water to the formula so they transition to cold milk easier - she added a little more cold water each day...like an ounce each day with the room temp water}. We were always advocated that if she wanted water that it had to be in a cup and not a bottle, though, so she was drinking water and juice out of a cup as well...
We did the bottle to cup transition at 15 months (2 or 3 days after she turned 15 months) and went cold turkey - put the milk in her cup and said here you go..she did just fine - didn't need/want a bottle at night...I've heard other moms tell me their children still wanted a bottle at nap or bedtime, but mine was ok with just drinking milk and water in her cup throughout the day....we do have her milk in an insulated cup though, so it stays colder longer and she drinks it all day long (she prefers milk over water)...but my daughter still really isn't eating a lot of table foods, so meal time is still not an adult meal for her (she gets an oatmeal or breakfast jar in the morning, a 6 oz tub of yogurt at 5 pm - after her nap, and then at bedtime she gets a fruit or sweet jar food...the rest of the day she snacks on crackers and cereal) {if I let her have her way she'd eat cereal and crackers all day and that's it - nothing else...this is my compromise to her}.
Hope this helps at least a little.
Has she transitioned to milk?
If she has never tasted milk, I suggest slowly transitioning her over a 2 week period. Wherein, you replace one once of formula with one ounce of milk. By the end of the two weeks the bottle or sippy cup is full milk.
Yes, I would still give her a sippy cup of milk in the place of her current bottles.
When we did this with my twins, we just put them on a more regular schedule once they were done breastfeeding. My daughter is nine months, so we are headed this way soon!
I never gave my son a sippy cup, we went straight to regular cups - it was also suggested to not put milk in sippy cups and to only put drinks that "won't spoil" in a sippy cup when you do need to use them because kids tend to leave them lying around and just drink whenever. I had to use them at my sister's because her husband refused to allow any child to drink from a cup w/out a lid in the house and I only allowed water flavored with juice in them because of this. I can not tell you how many times I walked into my nephews room only to smell sour milk because they were left lying around and leaked. EWWWW.
Yep sounds good.. The week of our daughters birthday we had picked out some sippy cups. I had them on the counter and kept telling her big girls do not drink bottle. On her birthday she would be a big girl and get to drink from a cup.
The night before, the moment I put her to bed, I threw away anything bottle related.. In the morning, I asked her.. "Do you want milk or juice in your big girl cup? We never looked back. "
