Getting rid of the bottle

[TheDizMom]

Do it gradually, and then when you are down to the last one make a big deal about having the "bottle fairy" taking the bottles to babies who needed them now that he is a "big boy" and not needing one anymore. The fairy can then leave some special sippy cups (playtex or the First Years makes themed disposable ones now so if he likes say Thomas the Tank Engine get some with the Thomas trains on them) or some other reward so your child feels like he has really accomplished something. Keep in mind though that waiting a month or two more when he is say 15 months won't kill him or you and it may be easier to get him to cooperate. It isn't worth a major power struggle yet, and when kids are learning how to do new things like walk and talk sometimes having something they are familiar with makes it easier to get to those milestones and make them less scary. At one they are changing so fast that it can be hard to add yet one more thing to the list of new and different experiences. The time goes so fast and sometimes it's o.k. to just let them be little for a bit longer. Don't rush it trust me they're 10 before you know it!

 

[tjlovespooh]

I didn't read all the other comments so I may be repeating what others have already said (sorry). I began by taking the daytime bottles away when DS was about 10mo (wanted to start earlier but had to keep putting cereal in his bottle due to bad reflux). He kept his bedtime bubba until his first birthday, then just quit it cold turkey! I guess we were just lucky because he never wailed for his bubba!
As far as not liking the sippy cup goes, our DS didn't like the conventional sippy cups either but he did take to the kind with the straw inserts (I think nuby makes them). Also SIL used a silicone spout sippy for her dd & those kind seem more like a bottle nipple (although DS never took to those kind either, only the straw ones for him).
Hope this helps. Good luck & just try to think of how much better drinking from a cup will be for his oral health in the future!

 

[tjlovespooh]

I guess I am of the opposite camp here. I don't see the big deal with the bottle. My kids all had bottles for a long time. The pediatrician didn't see anything wrong with it either. If there is some sort of problem then sure you have to eliminate them, but I am just trying to understand why everyone makes such a fuss over a kid with a bottle. Not trying to be rude- I genuinely don't get it.

Let me start by stating that everyone is entitled to their own opinion & I honestly believe that every parent does the best that they can for their children regardless of how it may appear to others. That being said I thought I'd share why it was such a big deal for me to get DS off the bottle by his first bday. 1) Babies who are on the bottle too long are more prone to have dental problems in the future (the way the milk/juice hits the teeth when sucking on a bottle is different from a cup) 2) Babies who stay on the bottle usually become accustomed to sucking while lying down & this can lead to the child developing ear infections. Well, those are just my own reasons for getting rid of the bottles. In DS experience the bottle was never something that he was emotionally attached to (he has a lovey cloth instead) so I never felt guilty about getting rid of the bottle. I'm sure the transition probably would have been much harder had he been older & more attached to the bottle (I guess that's another reason I will get rid of future baby's bottles by a year - less emotional hardship) Just my own .02

 

[Not so Dumbo]

Introduce the sippy cup with different juices in it. Once they catch on to it, they prefer the cup because the juices taste better than milk. Once they get used to the cup then start putting milk or formula in it.

 

[las3888]

We also started with the Nuby soft spouts as well, plus they are really cheap and so easy to find. We also did experiment with lots of different kinds of sippy cups (as we did with bottles too). We dropped one bottle a day every week and it was no big deal. No fuss no muss. I think the thing is the longer you wait, the more attached, thus the harder to get them to convert to sippy cups...

 

[nancy drew]

try a cup with a straw. neither of my kids wanted anything to do with bottles or sippy cups. ever. and i saw no reason to use either one, so i didnt. my kids both learned how to use a straw at about 6 months old. it makes life SO much easier, because anywhere you go there are cups with straws. you dont have to bring your own cup to the mall, to restaurants, etc. so i highly recommend the munchkin or playschool cups, as those are the only straw cups that dont leak all over everything.

 

[barkley]

neither of my kids had a problem transitioning from bottle to sippy cup. it was simply (for us) a matter of putting the liquid into another container and offering it. this might be because neither of them beyond 6 weeks of age ever had a bottle associated with sleep (both slept through the night by 6 weeks-and once they did that their last bottle was an hour before bed, daytime bottles were never close to nap times). i think it may be harder if the little one associates a bottle with comforting or winding down for sleep.

one thing that seemed to help was to expose them to a sippy cup well before we felt the need to separate them from the bottle. we would routinely put a small amount of formula or juice in one and put it on their high chair tray during meals. sure they fumbled and played with-were delighted when they got one that dribbled out, but they got used to the feel and little by little began using it. so by the time we were ready to eliminate the bottle it was basicly 'cold turkey'. we knew that if they were truly hungry or thirsty they would use it.

one thing i would warn against is using the straw type containers for too long-i found that ds consumed way too many liquids by virtue of the 'suckling' feeling these foster. he found it comforting and as a result would drink too much to the detriment of consuming solid foods (when we got him on the regular sippy cups he cut way back on the liquids and did much better with his solids).

 

[MSSANDRA]

All good points but one i have not seen is that denstist are now seeing as many problems with sippy cups as they do with bottles. The design of the no spill sippy cups directs the flow of juice directly behind the teeth and the increase of cavities in children on these teeth has risen in the last few years. Our dentist told our niece not to give her now infant son a sippy at all. I told her that was really not reality but to be aware of the damage then to take steps to reduce it. Also another dentist told my Best friend almost the same thing.
I too hate that your day care has such a strict rule and this sounds terrible but there is no reason that you have to follow that rule at home also IF you do not want to. At daycare away from you and with no choice you child will most likely do better with out the bottles than at home anyway. Yes, I did work in care care years ago BUT I will still say it, " It's their rule , let them deal with it there". As long as it does not cause your child more distress to deal with two differnt sets of rules about bottles.

In reality it is how you use both a bottle or a sippy cup that can cause problems. It seems that many toddlers now walk around with a sippy cup of juice all day. Parent also are more prone to letting the child lie down with the cup at nap or night tiime when the cup will not leak.

One thing we did was never put anything but milk in a bottle and only let DS have it if one of us was holding him and feeding him even as he got older. When they are ready they will tire of this and give up the bottle for a cup. Also only letting them have a cup at the table eleminates a lot of the dental issues with the cup. Giving a weaken form of juice is also a great idea. If you want a comfort bottle for nap or bedtime use only water.

It is so your choice as to when to take the bottles and you have gotten some great ideas on how to do it but try not to feel so much presure to do it before you and your child is ready. Not all the news on toddlers and bottles is bad.

MsSAndra

 

[Monkeyfeet]

1) Babies who are on the bottle too long are more prone to have dental problems in the future (the way the milk/juice hits the teeth when sucking on a bottle is different from a cup) :

I did want to comment on this quote. I totally agree with this, but also must add that little ones do not NEED juice. And if you give it to them, dilute it, dilute it , dilute it. My dentist said that putting juice in bottles is not giving the children's teeth a fighting chance. He said that every time he sees parents pour juice (or worse yet SODA, yes I guess some parents have no idea that that is horrible) into a bottle he cringes.

We never did bottles so I have no useful info. I am just curious in case we have this issue with the next child.

 

[susancl]

Forgive me if I sound preachy. This kind of question has many answers and you need to find the one that works for you. We found at 12 months, all of our ds's could understand every word we said. The twins were off bottles at 15 months (they were 11 weeks early) and our youngest went from nursing to regular cups and straw cups at 12 months.

We never used traditional sippy cups as our main source. We began introducing open cups at meals at around 6 months. They were mastered at around age 2.

We presented the straw cups as big boy cups.

 

[mom2my3kids]

My older two children were off the bottle at 1, my youngest was a bottle boy and was 20 months. I finally had to throw them all away, he cried for it a few days but then forgot all about it.

 

[MommaPooh]

I have not read all of the replies, so if something similar has been mentioned I appologize.
When it was time to get rid of the bottle we told DD that the Bak-Bak fairy(her name for the bottle was bak-bak) was going to pick up all of her bak-baks and leave her a prize. She was told the prize was for being a big girl and not using the bak-bak anymore. We took all of the bak-baks and put them in a box outside the front door before she went to bed one night. The next morning she had a babydoll as her prize and she never asked for a bak-bak again. Don't know if it would work for anyone else, but it was great for us.

 

[tjlovespooh]

I did want to comment on this quote. I totally agree with this, but also must add that little ones do not NEED juice. And if you give it to them, dilute it, dilute it , dilute it.

I agree, pediatrician told me the same thing, juice holds no nutritional value at all. Our DS only drinks milk & water, and loves both. I personally see no reason to give him anything else. You wouldn't believe the amount of slack I get from family & friends for NOT giving him juice.

 

[holden]

We adopted our DD just after she turned 2. She was still taking a bottle to bed. Once she adjusted to us and her new bed, we gradually watered down the bottle until it was just water (over about 2 weeks). Then when we felt like she was comfortable with us and settled in a bit (after about 4 months), we stopped giving it to her. She never asked for it or looked for it.

A friend of ours still gives her son a bottle at nap time and bedtime, and he is 2.5 years old. That seems a bit old to me, but I've never had an infant/baby.

 

[honeymom]

We used to use the playtex bottle with our dd. She hated sippy cups and I couldn't get her to give up the bottle. Then she started to hold onto the bottle by her teeth. I'd already had a niece who had a root canal at age 2 and my pediatrician's son had the same situation. When my dd was 18mos. old, my pediatrician told me that I had to take the bottle away from her - cold turkey. It was a really hard week, but we got through it.

I didn't want to have another cold turkey situation with my next child. So when I had my ds, I started using an avent sippy cup with him when he was a couple of months old. I used to gently pour in the fluids (avent sippy doesn't require sucking). By 6 months, he could handle a playtex type sippy cup on his own. Over time, I just gave him the sippy cup instead of the bottle sometimes. And, on his first birthday I completely stopped using any bottles. It never even seemed to matter to him.

The funny thing is that he is the child that has needed a lot more dental work. I think what one of the posters said is true. Those sippys are terrible. Even though kids spill, I think the best thing to do is to get them on regular cups as soon as possible.

 

[LisaNJ25]

I guess I am of the opposite camp here. I don't see the big deal with the bottle. My kids all had bottles for a long time. The pediatrician didn't see anything wrong with it either. If there is some sort of problem then sure you have to eliminate them, but I am just trying to understand why everyone makes such a fuss over a kid with a bottle. Not trying to be rude- I genuinely don't get it.

Same here .. my 17mo and 29mo still take a bottle.. Its the pacifier that I always got rid of early lol..

 

[Tink561]

My boys came off the bottle at a year old. It's what the dr. told us to do and we were very young so we went with it. We did introduce cups about 10 months so they were used to them by that time. We never put them to bed with a bottle, ever.

We just adopted our dd from China this past October when she was almost 10 months old. She is just over a year now and still takes a bottle. I don't plan to take her off the bottle anytime soon (even if the dr. wants me to) because it's great for bonding purposes, not to mention her world has been turned upside down so I don't feel the need to take the bottle away too. We have introduce the Nuby sippy cups with water at meal times. Right now she just plays with them and that's okay. I just want her to get familiar with them.

I plan to let her take the lead in giving up the bottle, within reason. She doesn't, however, take a bottle at naptime or bedtime. Her last bottle is about an hour or more before bed so she doesn't lay down with them. She takes about 4 milk bottles a day and it's really nice to have that time with her, make eye contact, etc.