At what age do babies stop using bottles and what is the best way to wean them off completely when

[Anonymous]

Just curious when did your baby stop using bottles all together and just sippy cups or straight up cups. Also, are there any tips to the process? My 13mo old seems to not want to drink milk from a sippy cup but has no problems drinking water from it. When I gave the sippy cup with water she kept saying "ba-ba" for her bottle. I imagine most people also meet resistance as well?

[Anonymous]

Quit the bottle at 12 months and started drinking from a real cup. Never liked the zippy cup.

[Anonymous]

We eliminated one daytime bottle at a time and got our son down to one last bottle, his night time bottle. I got worried about this one, because he's hard to put down if he doesn't get that time to "settle" and bliss out... But our pediatrician at our one year check up gave us the push and... it wasn't as bad as I thought. We had two tough days. The first night was rough and our DS didn't get enough sleep and acted out all the following day, and I dreaded that evening, but lo and behold when the sippicup came out, he lay out and drank it just like that.

So, I'd say don't fear the change, but pick a weekend when you can handle the extra fussiness.

[Anonymous]

I stopped the botte at 12 months and gave him sippy cups. The first couple of times he did not like drinking milk from the sippy cups but he quickly realized that that was the only way he was going to get any milk so he got used to it really quickly. Also, try different brands of sippy cups. When I switched to a different brand of sippy cup, he was a lot happier.

[Anonymous]

We were completely off bottles by 1 year. Around 10 months I replaced one bottle/day with a straw cup, 11 months another, 11.5 months another, and the last at 12 months. We introduced an open cup and sippy for water and sips of formula as early as we could just to give DC the idea of what to do and that liquid could come from things other than the bottle. By 10 months DC drank well from a straw after lots of practice. After the newborn stage I avoided feeding DC to sleep because I didn't want a milk-sleep association. The people I know whose kids were the hardest to get off the bottle were those who 1) fed the kids to sleep and/or 2) waited to introduce cups and transition. .

[Anonymous]

DD was down to one bottle at bedtime when she was 12 months old and was drinking from straw cups during the day. She wasn't a fan of sippy cups but would drink milk from the straw cups so you might try that. Then we just stopped the before bed bottle cold turkey. Instead of having a bottle we started snuggling and reading stories before bed instead. She never missed it

[Anonymous]

It seems like most of these are stay at home moms who did delayed sippy. You waited until 10mo to introduce sippy? My dd was using the sippy at 7 months.

Any working moms who can't take the time to slowly wean at home?

[Anonymous]

Wow--I feel like I am behind the 8 ball on this one. My baby is 13 mo old and only uses a straw cup for water and refuses to drink milk from a cup,sippy cup or straw cup. She may take a sip from the cup before it lands on the floor, spraying milk everywhere .... and the sippy cup she doesn't seem to grasp the whole concept of tilting it back, waiting for mom or dad to tilt it back for her....what do I do???

[Anonymous]

Right there with you PP. DS is breastfed but gets bottles during part time daycare - usually has 2 a day. He'll be turning 1 in 2 weeks. He will drink water from a sippy cup or regular cup but we haven't even attempted breastmilk in a sippy b/c I don't want to waste it if he won't drink it. My plan was to wait til we introduce cow's milk in a few weeks to start then.

Anyone have any tips on teaching a one year old to use a straw cup? I've heard those are better for speech development but DS doesn't get it at all.

[Anonymous]

My son wouldn't take a single sip of milk from a cup ever. I was completely anxious about it, I tried and tried (and he'd vomit from screaming so much about the sippy cup), I finally just gave in and let him have the bottle as long as he wanted. Finally when he was close to age 4 I took it away, and he never had a sip of milk since then.

He's 12 now, and he's a straight A student in a great school, lots of friends, a nice kid, etc. When you are in that stage, you somehow attach all kinds of importance to these milestones. I wish I hadn't tried so hard to get my son off the bottle, because honestly, who cares? For some reason, all his comfort was embedded in that bottle and his stuffed animal he used to hold with his bottle. He didn't turn out to have all these other issues -- he always slept in his own bed, had a bedtime that was regular, was super happy, etc. It was just one thing he did not want to budge on.

Sorry so long, but I guess my point is, don't get so wrapped up in these dates. Your kid is not going to do things when other things do things all the time. That doesn't mean there are any consequences to these divergences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son wouldn't take a single sip of milk from a cup ever. I was completely anxious about it, I tried and tried (and he'd vomit from screaming so much about the sippy cup), I finally just gave in and let him have the bottle as long as he wanted. Finally when he was close to age 4 I took it away, and he never had a sip of milk since then.

He's 12 now, and he's a straight A student in a great school, lots of friends, a nice kid, etc. When you are in that stage, you somehow attach all kinds of importance to these milestones. I wish I hadn't tried so hard to get my son off the bottle, because honestly, who cares? For some reason, all his comfort was embedded in that bottle and his stuffed animal he used to hold with his bottle. He didn't turn out to have all these other issues -- he always slept in his own bed, had a bedtime that was regular, was super happy, etc. It was just one thing he did not want to budge on.

Sorry so long, but I guess my point is, don't get so wrapped up in these dates. Your kid is not going to do things when other things do things all the time. That doesn't mean there are any consequences to these divergences.

Thanks for the sanity check. My DS is a great kid and pretty adaptable, but at 13.5 months he LOVES his bottle. He was very, very, very unhappy when we tried to pull the plug at 12 months. After giving it a lot of thought over the past few weeks, I'm not going to push it. He gets 2 bottles a day, he drinks them in under 10 minutes, and he's never taken a paci. I actually posted on DCUM asking for advice and several people said...what's the big deal if he still likes his bottle (as long as he's not sleeping with it in his crib)? It really challenged my thinking. I couldn't really come up with a good reason why I was torturing him. Basically, I was just doing what "the books" said to do.

[Anonymous]

Not OP but curious: to those that say go straight to a regular cup, you're holding the cup right? We do water out of a cup sometimes while I hold it, but I can't convince him that it isn't a mini-bath-in-a-cup. If incharge himself, there is no way my almost one-year old wouldn't either accidentally spill milk everywhere or purposefully spill it over once he took a few sips.

[Anonymous]

YOu might want to check our the Born Free sippy cups - they are technically a sippy but w/o the handles (which you can remove) look enough like a bottle but you can call it a sippy cup . My twins loved loved their bottles and at age 2 when they showed no signs of wanting to give them up, I switched to the Born Free. Not sure how long we'll use them 9they are 2.5), but they use them only for milk and like PP they drink only in morning and before bed in less than 10 minutes. Every now and then I get a bit hung up thinking, I really need to get them off the sippy / bottle but they enjoy them so much. My older son had a paci during nap and night until he was over 3 when our last one was lost...much to my surprise he gave it up easily and I think the transition was easy for him b/c I didn't force the issue and he was older.

[Anonymous]

We never used a sippy cup. Went from the bottle to a regular cup at around 13 months. And we generally give our toddler his milk or water in a real glass - he's never broken one. He just "gets" that glasses don't get thrown or dropped, I guess in part since he's never been given non-breakable kids cups or bottles (his bottles were glass too.)

And this is a bit off-topic, but our kid loves hot (well, warm) herbal tea, which he takes from a regular mug.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son wouldn't take a single sip of milk from a cup ever. I was completely anxious about it, I tried and tried (and he'd vomit from screaming so much about the sippy cup), I finally just gave in and let him have the bottle as long as he wanted. Finally when he was close to age 4 I took it away, and he never had a sip of milk since then.

He's 12 now, and he's a straight A student in a great school, lots of friends, a nice kid, etc. When you are in that stage, you somehow attach all kinds of importance to these milestones. I wish I hadn't tried so hard to get my son off the bottle, because honestly, who cares? For some reason, all his comfort was embedded in that bottle and his stuffed animal he used to hold with his bottle. He didn't turn out to have all these other issues -- he always slept in his own bed, had a bedtime that was regular, was super happy, etc. It was just one thing he did not want to budge on.

Sorry so long, but I guess my point is, don't get so wrapped up in these dates. Your kid is not going to do things when other things do things all the time. That doesn't mean there are any consequences to these divergences.

At what age did you start trying?