My son is 15 months and we have been trying to wean him off of the bottle. He has been taking a sippy cup with meals since he is 6 months old. However, he is still stuck on the morning and nightime bottle. Any helpful tricks???
My daughter was 18 mths and I ended up putting water in her bottle at night and she lost interest after 2 days. I couldn't believe how easy the transition was. now taking the binkie away from my 2 1/2 yr old! that's another story...
Hi C.,
We just went through this a few months ago. At 21 mos we just threw all the bottles out and went cold turkey. It was 2 days of crabbiness and asking where it is, but now he's fine. Now if I could just get rid of the binky!
I think going cold turkey is always the best way for little ones, weaning them is almost like slow torture in my opinion.
Good luck!
Lynsey
Dear C.,
The first thing you want to do is worry more about the sippy cup than the bottle. Get him off the sippy cup. They cause the develpment of a "tounge thrust" which can affect speech and the positioning of incoming teeth. If you don't want to try a regular cup, a straw cup would be great. This will actually even help the tounge thrust if is has started to develop. This may also be a fun way for your child to get off the bottle. There are all kinds of fun straws with cartoon characters and such. You can find may on-line. We just use the regular straw cups that I find at the grocery store in the baby section where they sell the sippy cups. They are quite spill-proof and we only let our little one walk around with water anyway.
Hope this helps.
God bless you and your little one.
T. E.
www.LiveWellShopSmart.com
We also weaned my son at 15 months, who, like yours, was still having a morning and nighttime bottle. We couldn't bear to go cold turkey. We substituted the morning bottle with a sippy cup for about a week, and then replaced the nighttime bottle with a sippy cup. His interest in drinking milk DID drop off a lot, so we increased yogurt. After about 2 months, he's back to loving milk, in any kind of cup.
My son is also 15 months and we weaned him at 13 months. Just changed the bottles to straw cups morning and night. He didn't seem to be phased at all. Two months later every thing is fine - he is actually a better eater because of it. He probably drinks 7 or 8 oz. of milk from his straw cup in the morning (has breakfast 30 minutes later) and sometimes at night we give him around 4 oz. of which he only drinks about half of. He also has yogurt as part of his afternoon snack and there is cheese in some of the foods that we eat.
I did both the bottle and pacifier (diff times) cold turkey. Went VERY VERY well. THe only thing was that my youngest wpuld no longer drink milk. I made up for it in the various foods that he ate. Good luck to you!
My oldest was hard to break from the nighttime bottle until we found a "special" cup. It took a few but eventually we found "the one". :)
Personally I find throwing away the things they are attached to torture. It's like you are throwing their "best friend" away. I'd rather find something they can get excited about like a new special cup or when they are older and in the case of binkies, giving the binkie to Santa or having the "binkie fairy" (like the tooth fairy) bring a big boy prize and take the binkie away.
Good luck,
L.
Hi C.,
Like some of the other moms here, I also went cold turkey at 15 mos. When my son refused to drink milk from a sippy cup for 2 days straight, I gave him chocolate milk in the sippy. Then I spent a week weaning him off the chocolate milk. Now our problem is that he wants to drink milk ALL day! Good luck!
