Formula to Milk...I Need Some Advice!

My son just turned 1 on 2/2 and we're in the same boat. If your daughter is eating a wide range of table food, there's no need for the formula anymore as she's getting all her nutrients from the food rather than the formula. There's no need to double up.

Switching to vitamin D milk will not be an issue. Just warm it up a bit and she'll drink it just fine.

Before you begin to get her off the bottle, you'll need to reduce the amount of bottle feedings a day. Right now my son is on three 6oz bottles of milk a day. With every sit down meal, we give the sippy cup. My son, like your daughter doesn't like the sippys too much. But, at some point he'll learn to accept them better. Consistency is the key.

Once she's accepting the sippy better, start replacing the mid day bottle first. Keep giving the sippy. Then replace the morning bottle and the evening is the last to go. Once this process starts, toddlers adjust very fast. I've gone through this 3 times. My eldest was bottle free by 13 months, middle child by 12 1/2 months and she was only 17 lbs and my third is yet to be determined. A good goal is to be bottle free by 15 months of age. The older they are, the harder it is to break.

Remember she's no longer an infant but a toddler. You'll need to mentally transition too. As much as we parents love to keep them little, it's best to encourage indepencence and automomy.

Good Luck!

If you feel like it is too soon to do it, then don't. Your ped is not your boss, nor is she a parenting expert or child psychologist- she is trained to treat medical problems which this is not.

I would say that the sooner you get the baby off the bottle the easier it is. Try distracting her after her she eats table food so she won't want the bottle. You can see if she will drink out of a regular cup to at least be sure she is getting some fluids. Then I would just keep trying to introduce the sippy cup. Usually bedtime is the hardest time to get rid of the bottle- that just takes time and effort (and sometimes a few tears:( ) Milk is really not that important to the baby's diet as long as you make sure she is getting fat, protein, and calcium from other sources. Good luck and trust your instincts!

My son liked to have the milk warmed up, I don't think he noticed the difference as much then. And as far as sippies go, I started with the Nuby sport cups. They are so similar to bottles, then I would introduce a new cup at mealtime. I started that with the regular Nuby sippy because he just had to bite down and milk came out. From there I moved onto regular soft spout sippies (I like Playtex) and now hard. Maybe start by putting her formula in the sippies and gradually adding milk. When I worked at a daycare center, we did this for some of the babies. Good Luck, I know this part is rough! Hang in there!

My doctor said to give 12-16 oz. of whole milk per day. The rest of her liquids are water and juice (no more than 4 oz. per day). I switched from formula gradually over a month, putting in more milk and less formula each week. I don't know what to do about cups- I got lucky and both of my girls just took a cup at 10-11 months with no problem. Good luck!

We took our son off of the bottle at 11 1/2 months. My 2nd didn't want to use sippy cups, but when I wasn't offering him a bottle he started using the sippy (b/c he knew he wasn't getting a bottle.) It took a day or 2, but he was eating enough "people" food where I wasn't too concerned (I also discussed this with our Dr.). I offered lots of other dairy products (cheese, yougurt, etc.) to make sure he was getting some calcium. It was a tough 2 days, but he took to it and we never went back.

*I'm sure you've tried these, but the only cups that he would take were the Gerber ones (No handles...only a cup...has a valve inside.) They come in 6 ounces and a bigger size too.

Good Luck!