How Do I Get Her Weined from the Bottle???

I threw all the bottles away and only had the leak proof sippy cups. When he was thirsty that was what he got. He learned that it was the only thing he was going to get. When they are hungry they eat, when they are thirsty they will drink. It's human nature. Good luck!

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I just took my little girls bottle away alittle over a month ago, and she is going to be 2, so she understand me. When she woke up in the morning, and asked for a baba, I told her we gave all the baba to the babies that needed them, you are a big girl and big girls drink from a cups... She has a different cup for milk than she does with water... we had a couple of bad days, you just have to stink to your guns... Do you want her off the bottle bc you think she is to old, or the DR recommends it? I think they are only babies once, and there no reason to push it... my goal was to have her off it by 2 (at 14 mths, she started drinking water from a cup, so she only had milk in a bottle)
Good luck!

With my son, I had to get the Gerber trainers. They have the blue laytex spout on them. He did great with those and after about a month I was able to give him hard spout sippy cups. He liked the softness of the gerber ones which is just like bottles. I also made sure I gave him the cup at least once a day starting a month out and as it got closer to his B-day, I gave it too him more often. He had his last bottle on his B-day right before bed. The next morning was a sippy cup and that's all there was too it. Never offered him a bottle again. Did it the same way with my now 8yr old daughter too and both my kids are happy, healthy and well adjusted! LOL

Good luck!
S.

PS. Those Nuby cups leak bad because you can't get the silicone part lined up with the ring and it will just cause them to leak-cheap is what you pay for here!

We felt the same way with our son. We had tried every sippy cup and straws and he would drink from a straw but not a cup. We started introducing cups when he was about 9 months old. We finally found a sippy that he would use a little it was the take and toss cups. About two weeks after he turned one we went to visit a friend a few hours away and I didn't take a bottle with me I figured we'd only be gone a little while and if I didn't have a bottle he had to have a cup. It turned into an unexpected overnight stay. My husband joined us later bringing our things. He forgot to bring a bottle. It was a huge fight to get him to sleep, but that was the last of the bottle. After we went home he would ask for a "ba ba" and I would give him a cup. I don't think I would have ever stopped giving in and letting him have the bottle if that hadn't happened. Just keep trying, I found that giving him an ounce of juice in a cup made him interested in it and once he would drink juice from the cup I began introducing formula/milk in it.

I second the last posting! My daughter loves the Disney Princess straw cups that you can buy at K-mart. Somehow, they don't leak very much at all...probably because she chewed on the straw until it is almost flat! LOL. Hope this helps! D. H.

The nuby cup with the soft straw is what worked for us. They sell them at walmart for $2-3.

My daughter is 12 months old and also LOVES her bottle. She refuses all sippy cups except the Born Free cup. It has a soft top and she took to it instantly. I had tried so many and was getting so discouraged. I had to keep at it for the first couple days because she'd drink a little and then just look at it and play but now she will hold it and does just fine. I still give her bottles and try to give her a sippy cup at least once day. That way we'll gradually transition over to the cup. I found them at Babies R Us. Good luck!

There is so much pressure to get children to stop drinking from a bottle at age 1 and it really isn't necessary. Some children give up the bottle easily at 1 year of age, most do not. I had several friends and pediatricians advise me to do take away the bottles when my twins were 1 year old. However, I had another couple of moms tell me not to sweat it and that they had waited until age 2. My mother told me that I had drunk from a bottle until I was three and I am just fine! So, I waited until my twins turned 2 and we just took the bottles away the day after their second birthday. Until that time, they still got one bottle of milk when they woke up and one before they went to sleep. Then, one morning after their morning bottle of milk, I washed all of the bottles, I gave them some fun brand new sippy cups that I knew they liked and I got them to help me put all of the bottles in a bag and said "bye-bye" bottles. That evening, we warmed milk and put it in the new sippy cups before bed. Our son had no problem with it, although he didn't drink as much as usual. Our daughter refused to drink milk from the sippy cup and was a little upset, but we just distracted them with other fun play and put them to bed. By the age of two, they had enough verbal comprehension to understand that the bottles were all gone and we said bye-bye. Furthermore, they have less need of the milk nutrients by the age of two because they eat other dairy and protien, so it is less of a concern nutritionally. So, we just offered them milk with every meal in a sippy cup and gave them a lot of yogurt for breakfast and snacks. After a week and a half, they stopped asking about the bottles and it was not traumatic. So, don't stress out too much. Your baby is still very young. It is fine to wait until you feel the time is right.

GRADUALLY, GRADUALLY, GRADUALLY!

There are a lot of people who get so up in arms about this, ("set a day, throw 'em away, and let her know who's boss") and it can really blow up into a huge ordeal. I think the worst thing you can do is to obsess over someone else's idea of what she should or shouldn't be doing at 12 months. If she's really enjoying her bottles, I would take it very VERY slowly. There are many toddlers that refuse to give up the bottle, and there's no need to make it a battle. Be creative - if you put your mind to it, there's a ton of ways to gradually get her interested.

When mine was transitioning to a cup, whenever I put his milk in a cup, I'd sweeten it with a little bit of honey (honey shouldn't be given before 12 months), and gradually cut back as he got used to it. You can pair that with gradually watering down her bottles of milk, reserving regular milk for a cup/sippy.

Here's another one: before giving her a bottle, (and before she gets too hungrry) sit down and snuggle her, maybe read a story and once she's already comfortable, nonchalantly offer her a cup of milk. (Or even better, let her think it's *your* cup and let her have a sip from "mom's cup." She'll probably flat out refuse for a while, but persistence can pay off, especially if the focus is on the snuggles and story and the presence of a cup is downplayed.) After the story and snuggles, you can give her the usual bottle, but maybe while she's in a highchair. Hopefully the snuggles and story will get her comfortable enough that she'll gradually start sipping from a cup, and as she drinks more from the cup, you can put less in her bottle (or water it down more.)

Just work on eliminating one bottle at a time, leaving her favorite (morning or bedtime bottle - whatever) for last.
My toddler really LOVED his last bottle before bedtime, and he drank so well (and SLEPT so well after it), that I continued it past 18 months - I just brushed his teeth afterwards and the pediatrician was fine with that.

Some people think sippy cups drag out the process longer, and go straight to a regular cup (with handles) - I think it depends on you kid and whether you have carpets.
Get a small cup with two handles, a cup with a built-in straw (the first time she figures that one out, she'll get drenched, by the way), and a couple different kinds of sippy cups.

Don't rush it if she's not ready. Here's what Penelope Leach (author of Your Baby and Child: birth to 5 years)says:
" Our culture views the bottle as infantile and the cup as
representing developmental progress and independence. Yet, I'm not aware of evidence showing that children who continue to take a bedtime bottle beyond age 2 turn out differently than those weaned earlier. When children are weaned has much more to do with cultural and personal beliefs than with science.

I vividly remember presenting one of my daughters at 14 months with a cup of milk instead of the bottle she expected. I was greeted with an expression of fear and rage. And although she soon independently chose a daytime cup, she required a bottle (of water) prior to nighttime
sleep until she was almost 3 – and suffered no developmental side effects because of it."

http://www.babycenter.com/404_my-toddler-refuses-to-give-...

i found that especially with milk if you mix it with a little bit of chocolate milk in a sippy cup helped.

Try the sippy cups with a straw. That's the only kind my son would use at first. Alos, someone makes a sippy with a silicone spout that is shaped a lot like a bottle nipple to make transition easier.

Straw sippy cups! They are at all grocery stores.
N.
mommy to ds8, dd6,dd4