Getting 13 Month Old to like Whole Milk and off Bottles

Hi! I have twins that are 16 mths and I just went through this struggle. One took to the milk very easily but, my daugther was a challenge. My Ped recommended 2% milk since they were gaining weight and are both very heathy babies. For my daughter I had to warm her milk for the first two months but, she now takes it without any issues. She still doesn't drink it as fast as her brother. The night bottle was also a concern for me. I chose to change the bed time routine all together. After baths we use to let them run around and then give them their bottles. Now it's baths, we brush our teeth (my daughter only has three but she doesn't know any different), then it's hugs and straight to bed. We didn't have any trouble at all. They like brushing their teeth so much they didn't even notice they hadn't gotten a bottle. One word of advice that my ped gave me...As long as they get the calaries they need during the day they don't need that extra boost to get them through the night. Good luck!

Have you tried mixing them? I weaned my kids off formula by mixing a little milk with the formula, then gradually increasing the amount of milk and decreasing the amount of formula until, finally, it was just milk. Just a suggestion. . .

We had the same problem with our daughter, she just did not want to get off that bottle. So with the advise of her DR we just took the bottle away cold turkey. She had a few sleepless nights but when she figured out she could still have something to drink, even thought it was milk in a sippy cup she took it and was not exactly ok with it but she accepted it. I know it is hard listening to your child cry but it will all work out in the end. You can try this or not, but it did work for our daughter and she did not hate me afterwards! GOOD LUCK!!

HI K.,

We are having the same problem with a boy I watch in my daycare. His mom took him off the bottle and tryed to change to milk. He was on the Alimentum (dairy free) so they tried regular milk, soy milk, and rice milk. He has refused everything. He will drink water in small amounts when really thirsty. The bottles we were able to give up, but he is still adamantly refusing any milk and it has been almost two weeks. He throws the cup and gets mad. Obviously we are concerned with dehydration and that he is getting enough nutrients. At this point his ped has said that what he really needs from the milk is the calcium, so make sure he is getting as much calcium fortified food as possible and also try watering down some calcium fortified orange juice for him to drink. She also mentioned that if none of this working to try out some of the formula made for older kids and offer that to him. And give him some pedialyte to ward off dehydration. I know this really isn't a solution for you, I just wanted to let you know you aren't the only one with this problem. I would definitely bring it up to your ped if it continues.

This is what I did and it worked like a charm.. no problem.. Make sure you do this in a juicy cup not a bottle. I put very little strawberry quick in her milk.. this was enought to give it a sweet flavor.. i used the power quick...and it worked! Do tell if it helped...

Kristina:

She does not need milk/ she need water for hydration and food for nutrition/ stop the fight.

P., RLC, IBCLC, CST
Breastfeeding and Parenting Solutions
www.breastfeedingandparentingsolutions.com

I agree with everyone else -- do the slow transition and aftera week or so she'll be on whole milk. Another thing to try is flavored milk. My kids never took formula but hated the taste of whole milk so I took my pediatrician's advice. I gave them chocolate milk. Now, before you freak out, it didn't hurt them... I made it rather weak but there was enough of a chocolate taste to get them to drink it. After a few days I started cutting back on the chocolate and within a few days it was plain milk. At that age, none of my kids had juice and the little bit of chocolate milk had less sugar than juice plus it was fortified with extra vitamins/minerals.

My twins didn't like the taste of milk either. If you add 1 oz. of milk to each bottle for a week then 2 oz the next week etc.. they will adjust. If you don't ease them into it they really are turned off. Also , I eliminated the afternoon bottle because at the time they didn't want to use their sippys instead of a bottle and it helped them drink their nighttime bottle better.Eventually they wanted milk after their nap again:)

My Allison did the same thing! It took a couple of months, but now she loves milk! She took a sippy cup with water since she was four months old and never had any problems until I put formula or milk in it. The way I finally got her to drink her milk was to puree strawberries, then stain them and mix it into her milk. No need to add any sugar, it is sweet enough. Then I gradually added less and less until she was drinking plain milk. It did take awhile. During this time I just made sure she was eating yogurt, cheese and fortified orange juice. Good luck I hope your Alison isn't as stubborn as mine!

I have two beautiful girls- the older one I didn't get off the bottle until she was almost 3 but now she has some small cavities. The other now 16 months old- I have started to water down her milk at night- we are at 75% water and 25% milk now and she still is going to sleep and sleeping through the night. As far as the formaula to milk I did what the others said I mixed it unitl it was all milk for both of them. By the way my oldest went off the bottle cold turkey becuase I bought her a new sippy cup that she chose but like I said she was much older.
Hope this helps.

It's best to start out by mixing the formula and milk. Start with 75% formula and 25% milk. Then over the next few days mix in more milk than formula. The best way to break the bottle is just to stop it all together. Don't let it be an option. Try the sippie cups that have a softer spout.

The longer you wait to take the bottle away the harder it will be. What worked best for my children is getting rid of it cold turkey. We didn't have them laying around, offer it too them or talk about the bottle. It was a lot easier than we thought. Also my boys didn't take to milk so well either so we put a little Oveltine in their milk to help with the taste. We still use it a lot and my doc said as long as they are getting the milk it doesn't matter.

We gave Carson a sippy cup in place of the bottle at bedtime. He never really noticed a difference between the milk and his formula. He took his last bottle 1 day before his first birthday. He took a sippy cup at bedtime for about a week then didn't want anything at all before bed. I started slowly replacing the bottle with the sippy cup. I gave him a sippy cup with formula in it with breakfast one morning and he drank it right up. From then on, I didn't give him a bottle in the morning.

We switched to milk by mixing milk and formula together. At first more formula than milk, then slowly reduce the formula and increase the milk over time. This not only makes it easier for their tummys to adjust, but it get's them used to the new flavor.
As for a night time bottle, try water in the bottle, then switch to a spill proof cuppie. Milk AND formula at night can lead to rotten teeth! And this time of year it is so dry that even my 10 and 8 year olds always have a glass of water in their rooms at night. Good luck and don't worry, some kids just take longer to adjust, but definately push the cuppie.

Mom of three

when my kids were going to milk i put 2 oz of milk into the formula each time adding 2 more oz and by the end of the day they had a full bottle of milk and they seemed to like it of course that was about 18 and14 yrs ago but try it .

Maybe try skim milk, just to get her used to the taste, then started mixing in whole until you don't need the skim. It worked for us. I also had to stop offering water at the same time.

I slowly switched my daughter also starting out with 25% D milk and 75% Formula and gradually went up. She's doing great. I also got her drinking out of a sippy cup with a straw, giving her water at first then switching over to the milk. Worked great! She didn't get the concept of the regular sippy cup. Try the one with the straw.

I don't know what kind of formula your baby is on but enfamil has a formula called next step and it's to transition your baby from formula to regular milk. I have a daughter and she'll be 13 months in a couple of weeks and she still makes the icky faces when we give her regular milk but she likes the next step.

Stephanie

How about soy milk? I couldn't do dairy for a long time with my daughter. Vanilla flavored soy milk might be more palatable? I've also heard TUMS for the calcium if kids won't drink milk.

I went cold turkey with my son. He now drinks 2-3 gallons per week. (That's not a typo)

Be strong with her. I would not give in... keep giving it to her. Eventually, she'll figure out that the only way that she'll get it is if she does it by your terms. I did this and it worked.

My little one was born 1/6/07 too! We are in the process of switching from formula to milk. I'm going to try your tip of water or milk at the meal - that makes sense. We do milk in a sippy in the morning, snuggled in bed, just like we did with a bottle. He doesn't even notice the difference. I wonder if I'm supposed to break that routine altogether? Oh well. We never did a bedtime bottle, our little guy had/has acid reflux and he does better not going down on a full tummy. I've heard of friends having success watering down the formula and lessening the amount over a week and by the end, it's mostly water and the child tosses it aside. Good luck!
M.

my first 2 boys were no trouble at all changing from bottle to sippy but my youngest boy forget it. as awful as it may sound my husband and i just ended up throwing all of his bottles away. it took a few days of him crying and screaming for his bottle but he got over it and started using a sippy. as far as her not liking milk i'm sorry i can't help you there. all 3 of my boys loved milk when they were a baby and they still love milk today. of course she has to get used to a new taste. try feeding her oatmeal and mix in some milk with it and that way she will at least be getting some milk in her. any foods that u can prepare with milk will help her and she wont even know it's in the food. good luck!

I didn't have a problem at all with my now 3 yrd old when we switched her to milk/off bottles at one year old, but did have an issue w/ my now 20 month old.

Here's what we did.... let's say we gave her 8 oz of formula in a bottle. Well, we'd only give her 6 oz of formula and 2 oz would be whole milk. Then the next day we'd give her a bottle w/ 4 oz of forumla and 4 oz of whole milk. She started to realize something was different here, but we just kept offering it to her and eventually she realized that's what she was getting and she took it. Once she did that without much trouble we gave her 2 oz of formula w/ 6 oz of whole milk. Then finally we got down to all milk w/ no formula. Sometimes they need the gradual change in taste.

Also, I never had an issue getting rid of the bottle w/ my now 3 yr old, but did w/ my now 20 month old. So, We offered sippy cups. But not the ones w/ the spouts in them (there's a theory that when given those kinds of cups too often for too long it can actually affect the child's speech later on). We bought the cups that have straws in them. Apparently, that's the best thing for them to drink out of. The next choice would be a sippy cup w/out the spout, and the last choice should be the sippy cup w/ the spout. There are some you can buy where you can actually close a "lid" type thing over the straw so it doesn't spill out. My girls just learned to do that on their own. At meals they get regular cups, but when we go out or they're playing they get the cups w/ the straws.

I found battling the milk issue first was helpful, then she realized the bottle wasn't what she normally liked so she took the sippy cups. And, I just stopped offering the bottle. It caused some crying, but I introduced her to new ways to soothe herself, like a soft blanket or singing her songs, etc.

GOOD LUCK!

I understand your frustration. We just got my daughter off the bottle at 18 months and we waited so long because her and my son are only 13 months apart and she had a big problem with jealousy of the bottle after he was born. I pumped my milk into bottles because he wouldnt latch on and she would see him getting bottles all day and wonder why she couldnt have one. Anyway, she hates regular milk so we add a little chocolate or strawberry flavor to it which was recommended by our ped and she will drink it out of the sippy cup. She gets this 3 times a day along with water and juice out of the sippy cup. We started putting her to bed with her sippy cup and she drinks it and goes to sleep. The first week was hard, she would cry for 15 min and then give in and drink her sippy cup and then go to sleep. I leave water in a sippy cup in her crib after she goes to sleep in the middle of the night so she has something in case she wakes up thirsty. Hope this helps. Good luck. J.

Can you not just make her bottles of part formula and part milk until she gets used to the taste and then gradually replace more and more with milk?

With my son I had to warm the milk in the sippy and it did take him a while to take to it. At first he would only drink water out of the sippy. We BF but he got bottles at daycare and that is what I did with the daycare bottles. Then by about 14 months he was doing well enough with the milk sippies that we just stopped sending the bottles. I think it was easier to get him off the bottles though cause we continued to BF at home until he was older. Keep the routine, just begin replacing some of her normal formula with milk, little by little.

My twins were born 12/18/06. I am going through the same thing. At a year I took them off formula (with little effort). Getting them off their bottle is another story. Let them be litte is my advice. They like a warm bottle of milk in the am. They'll have a sippy cup of milk for lunch , diluted juice in a sippy cup for snack. At night, another bottle of warm milk. My ped. is urging me to kick the bottle as well. They don't have to see their confused faces in the am when they're crying for their bottle, easy to preach. Do what works for you and yours. Good luck.

They say that Milk before bed is bad for their teeth. After dinner we just give water. My 3 year old still takes a cup of water to bed. She sets it next to her bed.

I used to add some vanilla nestle quick to our sons cup of milk, it gives it a little taste. Also Walmart has these amazing sippy cups that have a bendable silicon top similar to that of a bottle so the transition isn't such a shock

Try other variations.
Goat milk is closest to breast milk and is always well tolerated by babies' tummies.
Soy, rice, almond, etc...are good options for protein but you do need to get more cheese and yogurt in to the diet for calcium and vitamin D.
My son has liked milk from the beginning (although not instead of nursing but in addition to) but he LOVES it when I add a little chocolate soy milk to the white milk for flavor.
Organic milk tends to be a bit sweeter, you can try that and see if it makes a difference.

Good Luck :)