Whole Milk - Minneapolis,MN

take a deep breath and let all the expectations go. every child is different and timelines for developement don't fit every child. I would just back off and go slower. She will get there. Everything that babies and toddlers do is just a phase. They all eventually move on to the next phase. This too shall pass. Good luck.

I mixed a little Yo-J (I think that is what it is called) with whole milk in the cups (don't put it in the bottle) to give the milk a little flavor. She might like it :) Plus Yo-J has calcium in it, too.

Good luck!

Don't pressure your daughter or yourself because somebody says that 1 is the magic age to lose the bottle. My kids were the same way as yours is, refused milk completely. With my daughter, we gave her formula (sometimes with milk mixed in) in bottles before bed and nap until almost 18 months. We then switched to milk in a bottle before bed until she was almost 2. We had no problem weaning her from the bottle. My son was similar but he would occasionally drink a very small amount of milk from a cup. We weaned him from his milk bottle just before his 2nd birthday.

Our pediatrician never worried about it....the bottles or the lack of milk drinking. My kids both LOVE cheese and yogurt. There are plenty of other ways to get calcium and protein.

Do what it right for you and your daughter and don't worry about what is "right" based on some schedule that is published somewhere.

Good luck.

My son used a bottle during the daytime until he was 1.5-2 ... and at night until he was 3.5. We figured what he was drinking was far more important than what he was drinking it out of.

We also probably went through 20 brands of sippy cups & water bottles until we found the brand he actually liked. (It was one with a valve, so he still had to suck). Oddly (or not) he'd drink from a regular cup/mug... but we needed something that we could carry with us. We didn't stress it, because we still had his bottles, and those worked just fine. So once a week or every other week we'd try out a new sippy.

On the milk... first off we had to start with warm milk. He wouldn't take milk+formula... but WOULD take warm milk. Shrug. He's never been a real "gentle transition" kid. Half steps bug him. That's okay, I can get that, because whole leaps bug me. If I can prefer the gentle transition, he can prefer the "and now it's time for something completely different". In order for him to take cold milk we had to add chocolate syrup.

Anyhow, just our experience. Part of the fun with kids, is how different they all are. I remember being amazed at how much personality babies have. Goes to figure that those personalities don't just shut off when they differ from ours.

I am not a big "do things on a schedule" person. Our grandkids stayed on the bottle until they were ready. Most were off the bottle by 2 years old. One was off by 2 1/2, one day he brought me the bottle and asked for a tippy cup.

The reason why I am not a "be on schedule" person:
My daughter was about 13 months old and she fell off the couch onto her bottle and ended up knocking a tooth loose. She had to go off the bottle that day and was NOT ready. But the sucking would pull the tooth completely out and the doc wanted to give it a chance to stay in her mouth. So, she still needed to suck and guess what was avail. Her fingers. She sucked her fingers until she was nearly in Jr. High. Her jaw is recessed and her teeth so crooked they wouldn't even waste the time and effort to straighten them without breaking her jaw first.

To say the least, if one of my grandkids need to stay on the bottle longer I don't care. Bottles are easier to remove and fingers are there forever. I talked it over with our pediatric dentist and he said it's the holding the milk in their mouth for extended hours and hours is what causes tooth rot. And any substance can cause it. Saliva naturally cleans the mouth. If the bottle is carried around in the teeth all day or held in the mouth all night the milk/drink is never rinsed away. So the drink sits on the teeth for a long time and eats away. If she is drinking and then going on her merry way she should be fine.
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About the milk in the tippy cup. Try flavoring it with a tiny amount of choc. syrup or strawberry syrup. You can always use fresh fruit instead. We had "purple cows" at my child care center often. It's blueberries and milk mixed in a blender. Sometimes I would put a bit of ice cream in it too and the kids would drink it up.

Did you make the move to milk gradually? I always transitioned the baby room kids by mixing 2 oz. milk with 6 oz. milk for about a week, or until they took it without hesitation. Then half and half for a while, then like you are doing now. I didn't really think this last stage ever lasted as long as the other ones, the milk taste was really there by the half and half and they moved much more quickly after that. She only needs about 24 oz. of milk a day so if she is tkaing a full bottle in the morning and evening the rest of the day I'd just try and use the milk in cooking and give her juice, no more than 8 oz's a day, and some water.

I think you do whatever you have to to get her to drink the milk. If that means letting her have a bottle a few times a day, big deal. I know the "experts" say to take away the bottle at 12 months, but if it is working for you and your child, I say let her have it. Of course, I don't advocate letting her walk around all day with a bottle, but it sounds like you already limit her time with it. So, if she'll only drink the whole milk from a bottle, let her drink from a bottle. Good luck!

whole milk isnt important for any child with an adequate diet. serve nuts, avocado, that kind of thing and she will get beneficial healthy fats enough without having to have milk.

and besides, 1 or 2 small cups of milk a day is MORE than adequate.
put some chocolate in it if necessary. no need to mix formula in it. so you can stop that any time.

you could check out information on vegan/vegetarian options. vanilla almond milk is VERY tasty, and EXTREMELY healthy!

what i would worry more about at this point is giving her adequate water; especially as the temperature rises. :) milk once or twice a day, in any form, at meals only. it seems like they push and push and push for this huge intake of milk; yet osteoperosis is not going away, no matter how much milk we consume. only goes to show that calcium from milk is not as reliable as we thought. ;) its ok. dont stress!

I am very much in the done-with-the-bottle at 12 month camp.
Here's what the American Academy of Pediatrics has to say on the subject:
http://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/baby/f...

Our kids didn't have a choice, and they both did really well with the transition to the sippy cup and whole milk in the process. The only time we had problems was when we offered both bottles and sippy cups prior to their first birthday - they always chose the bottle. We didn't have a single problem when the bottle was no longer in the picture.

If you give them an option, they'll always take what they prefer because of habit. If you don't give them an option, they'll take what's available. I'm not a perfect mom by any means, and there's plenty about my parenting that can be criticized, but this is something I wouldn't budge on because I believe it's a case of the kid calling the shots and not the parent. I know this isn't popular just by reading the other responses, but it is my personal opinion.

I do strongly encourage you not to mix anything into the milk to mask the flavor. You will fight a life-long battle and have to keep doing it because she'll never learn to like the taste of milk. The extra calories of chocolate, vanilla, strawberry are not worth it, and if you watched Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, it's a huge problem.

I'd keep mixing with formula for now and slowly alter the ratio until she gets accustomed to the taste of whole milk. The fat in whole milk is really critical for brain development at her age and until 24 months.

Good luck!

Its NO biggie.
No need to rush.
She IS drinking.
My son was the SAME way. Drinking partial milk/Formula combo. He is healthy and strong and grows like a weed. He then went to just whole milk.
My son drank it from a bottle too. Then he just NATURALLY went to drinking it from a straw cup.

MANY kids, still drink from a bottle at that age. Just wipe/brush/rinse her teeth, before bed.

There is no "law" that a kid HAS TO be done with bottles at 12 months of age finitely.

In other cultures... it is less rigid. And the kids are fine.

all the best,
Susan

I'm in agreement with all the responses that say, let go of all the "shoulds" and the artificial timelines, and relax. These are guidelines, not rules. Who are you "feeling the pressure" from? You may need to let them know that your daughter is doing just fine and that you are her fine with her eating habits.

My daughter drank a milk/formula combo for several months past 12, and she drank from her bottle twice a day until she was 3. She is perfectly healthy, including her perfect teeth.

A sippy cup is actually an uneccessary step for kids, they were invented quite recently, and some children never like them. You have to suck really hard on them to get the milk out. My daughter would not use one, so she started drinking from a regular glass at mealtimes at 14-15 months (this was actually a requirement at her daycare and she hardly every spilled).

We used to mix a little bit of baby bananas in with the whole milk. This worked both for the transition between nursing and whole milk (but I did still nurse him in the morning and night when I did this) and the breast to sippy cup transition. Slowly weaned the bananas over the course of a couple of months. I like this better than adding chocolate syrup, as several people told me to do. (That said, a good handful of people told me to try chocolate syrup!)

Just looked at a few of the other answers, and one thing I would add is that the fat in whole milk is important for brain development, so don't dismiss it too quickly!

some children just do not like whole milk. I know doctors and WIC organizations, etc want a child on whole milk but if they will not drink it what do you do. My youngest would not drink whole milk (still hates it as does my husband) but would drink 2% or skim just fine. She also really loved soy milk as a baby. We had to experiment because thought she had mild dairy allergy so she was on soy for awhile and loved it. Try switching to one of those to get her off of formula.
As for the bottle thing, it is sometimes difficult to transition off the bottle completely. Some kids think ok this is no fun anymore other love the bottle and dont want to give something they are used to and comfortable with up.
You can try once you figure out this milk situation only give her favorite drinks (milk, juice, etc) in her cup. The bottle is for water only (especially if she is like most kids and doesn't like water all that much) she will soon start not wanting that at all and will gladly reach for the cup with milk or juice rather then the bottle of water.
LOL ofcourse my daughter who is now 4.... only drinks water if it is in a bottle. Never from a cup. Silly girl! Hope this helps :)

Mix milk with flavored Kefir ( a liquid yogurt in the health food isle). It gives it a little better taste, more nutrition. You only need 1/8 of a cup to make a difference. It is beneficial as it has "good bacteria" in it. Good luck.

As for the bottle....I am working on ridding my 15 month of it as well. My doctor states the reason for getting off the bottle is that they get too much of their calories from milk from the bottle whereas drinking from a sippy cup is a little more difficult and they don't fill up on milk.

good luck

My daughter had a milk-protein allergy and we started testing her with whole milk and formula after her 1st birthday. Our doctor told us to wait until we got the milk thing figured out before we cut out the bottles. We waited until she was completely off of formula for 2 weeks and then cut out the bottle. It worked great for us. We cut out the day time bottle, than the morning bottle and finally the night bottle.

I have known folks to put vanilla in the milk. Also, you may want to try Braums milk (it is as good as organic) since it does not have any growth hormones. The price is great and it is better for your family.

Have you tried giving her chocolate milk? We couldn't get our twins to drink whole milk - they just don't like the flavor - so we tried mixing 1/2 gallon whole milk and 1/2 gallon chocolate milk (1%) to see if they would drink it, and they now are drinking milk just fine. I sometimes wonder if it's the thickness of the whole milk that they don't like, as my mother has no problem getting them to drink milk at her house, and she drinks 1%.

As far as getting rid of the bottle, there are transitional cups that you can try that don't have the hard tip, but rather a silicone tip that isn't as soft as a bottle nipple that may work well for you. Also, getting cups with handles may help if you don't have cups like that. My boys are 16 months and when we switched over from bottles, they refused the cups with the hard tips. They still don't like them, but love the cups that have the straws. They feel like big boys. They also carry their cups around with them because they have handles. And as far as your daughter throwing her cup on the floor during meals, that's just a normal thing for kids to do. They like to play what I call the "pick up game", and throw things on the floor just so that you will give it back to them. Our highchairs have spots for cups to sit, so every time they throw their cups on the floor, I pick it up and put it in it's spot. More often than not now, they put their cups in their spots instead of throwing them on the floor. I always make sure to tell them what a good job they are doing when they do it also.

Good luck!

It could be that the mixture of whole milk and formula is too thick for her. I would try just the whole milk and skip the forumal all together or change to 2 percent milk which isn't as thick. After changing to 2 percent for awhile you can move back to whole milk later on. Yeah get rid of the bootle, if she is going all day without it and then she is ready to be weaned, it won't be easy but better now than to wait in the future.

Try soy milk maybe- it could be giving her a tummy ache, but if she will eat yogurt or cheese do that, and least of all try skim milk- anything to get her the calcium she needs

My son rejected whole milk completely, but he liked 1% and 2%. So I got him to drink those occasionally, and then as he began to drink more, I began to up the fat (I made sure he ate whole-milk yogurts and whole-milk cheeses to keep his dairy and calcium levels up). Now he guzzles whole milk. You might give it a shot.

I wouldn't worry too much about it. Ask your ped next time you're at the doctor's office about the milk. Ours recommends being totally done with whole by the time their 2 anyway and mine stopped drinking it early too. As longs as your LO is ok in the weight department you should be fine switching to a 1 or 2%. As far as the bottle goes...we've been a little slow on that one so we're still working on it at age 2! Although the earlier you do it the easier it is or so I've heard--apparently it's hard for like 2 days and then they forget about it. Good Luck!