Weaning off Formula

My son is 9 1/2 mos. And I was told by the doctor also to start trying a sippy cup with formula. My son hates the sippy cups....I've tried 3 or 4 different kinds! He just wants that bottle. I'm still trying with no avial. I haven't tried the straw thing but I may try that. I was told by the doctor no cow's unitl a year.

I just started to give my daughter sippy cups with only cows milk at one and didn't even try putting it in bottles. My dentist recommended that I never give my child bottled water (no floride) because it can weaken baby teeth in the long run. Tap water has floride in it. If he will drink from a straw I would just start putting his drinks in sonic cups (mabey goto sonic and ask if you can have a dozen or so cups?).

One step at a time.

Get rid of the bottle first. Use something he'll use. I switched my youngest from a bottle to a straw and a cup with a lid. We still needed to use formula though. Stock up on those cups, try ones from the convenience store too they are usually hard plastic and more durable.

Then you can either water down the formula with milk adding 2 ounces a week or just serving it too him cooler and cooler until it's cold then gradually transfer over to milk.

As for the water, bottled is great but you need to make sure it's floridated. We didn't and my middle boy had cavaties like you wouldn't believe. For the younger boy we just used tap. I even suffered while I was pregnant with #2 because our bottled water which I did everything but bathe with wasn't floridated. My teeth went down hill. Too much morning sickness and brushing. Okay, honestly I'm sure that floridated water won't over come all the vomiting damage but it can really help.

A.,mixing the milk and formula is fine to do like one of the other mom's said mix it till the formula runs out.That's what my sister-in-law is also doing and my nieces are both doing fine with it.They are know just taking a bottle at nap time and bed time only.For as the sippy cup they both take it with no problem,just let him take it the way that is easy for him and he will eventually come around to taking the cup by himself.
J.

I found with both of my children that it is easier just to take the bottle away and go to the cup. We tried with my youngest to wean slowly and it was so much harder then I finally just took the bottle completely away and he did just fine. With my oldest, the day she turned one she was off the bottle and never looked back. My son, the youngest, I had a hard time finding a sippy he liked. We ended up with the Gerber Fun Grips soft starter spill proof cups. The tops have a soft spout so it is less of a shock than the hard plastic cups. He would only use those for the first few months and now he will use just about any cup you give him. Wal-Mart also has the nuby brand of cups that have a soft top and my daughter loved those but once she turned two she realized that she could bite the top and make the drink come out faster which makes them not spill proff anymore so we had to quit using them.

Are you offering him a sippy cup with his meals? I used the take n toss sippy cups for my son. He also liked the tupperware sippy cups. He hated the ones with the spill proof valves. Of course they are not spill proof, I got lucky he never wanted to play with his cup. And he strickly used a regular cup by 2 1/2.

I started my son with a sippy cup around 6 months of age, when he ate regular food.

Around 11 months I started mixing in whole milk with his formula and slowly decreased his formula. Some kids do great with mixing it and going to straight milk. Some do experience upset tummies. I ended up mixing since I had so many problems with him spitting up as a baby. Also his doctor advised me to add in liquid vitamin drops to his morning milk for an additional 6 months.

Best of luck

ella is almost 13mos now and our doctor suggested half formula and half milk right @ her 1yr.
I started with her naptime bottles and made them half and half but left the bedtime bottle all formula; then I slowly upped her naptime bottles to all milk and her bedtime bottle half and half. It was a gradual switch.
It has been about a month now and she is onto all milk all the time. I didn't want to change everything all at once so now we're working on not warming the bottle.
So, it's okay to warm the whole milk if you think you need to (Ella hates it at fridge temp, she will not take it) and it's okay to use bottle for milk. Ella takes a sippy fine but I still do bottles for naps and bedtime. Personally, I think it's kind of comforting through the transition to milk because the milk and formula behave differently in the gut and through digestion which can cause some discomfort.
With tap water: I don't know what doctor's suggest, but we were using tap water with her formula and we give her whatever water we drink now.
With changing to sippy cups: For Ella, she is very independent and wants to do everything the adults do, so the easy thing was giving her drinks from a regular cup(especially my cup), just like the grown-ups, and letting her help hold the cup. This started her interest in the cup itself. Once she was used to drinking from the cup I just started handing her sippy cups and she took right to them. I think we used the Nuby (wal-mart) soft tops at first.
It just seems to me that the sippy has to be a little confusing. I mean, they get a drink like out of a cup and have to swallow accordingly but yet they still have to suck as if from a bottle. Have you ever drank from all three? I'm the type that has to try everything so I drank from the bottle, sippy, and reg. cup... the bottle forces you to swallow differently then the sippy and the reg. cup (which are more like each other).
Try drinking a few drinks of whatever through the bottle you use and then try through the sippy cups you're going to try and see which cup would seem the most similar to the bottle in gulp size, sucking action needed to get a drink, the way it feels in your mouth, etc. Also, a lot of the spill proof cups have those plastic inserts that prevent spilling but if you have ever tried to drink through them it can be really hard- I take all of those out of Ella's cups, I'd rather deal with the spill then a kid who can't get a drink. That would be as frustrating for your child as giving them a newborn nipple when they're ready for hi-flow. They're not going to mess with it at all if they can't get a good drink.

When my twins were almost 11 months we were ready to switch from formula to milk. Our doctor told us to just switch them straight to milk there was no need to wean or mix part formula with part milk. Only difficulty there is, if you son is in Day Care and they are getting reimbursed for food from the state, they have to serve at least part formula until the child is 12mo old.

When we went from a bottle to sippy cup, we just started giving the sippy cup. At first all of my kids were not interested, but after a couple of meals of only being offered a sippy cup and no bottle they figured that it was a good idea to drink from the cup.

Good luck, J.

I starting switching my daughter to milk (soy) at 11 months. She was pretty much off the bottle though. When I started switching to soy milk, I'd mix it differently week by week. She would drink 8oz. so week one I'd mix 6oz. formula and 2 oz. soy milk. Week two I'd mix 5 oz. formula and 3 oz. soy milk. So on and so forth until she was completely on soy milk. (In case you're wondering why she's on soy milk...she's lactose intolerant.)

When I started weaning her from the bottle (around 10 1/2 months) I would give her a cup in place of a bottle for one meal a day for a week. So, week one she'd have a cup at breakfast instead of a bottle. Week two she'd get a cup for breakfast and lunch. I let her have her night time bottle until a year simply because that was the only time she'd let me snuggle her! :) She would only drink out of the sippy cups with straws and when she did for the first time, we made a HUGE deal out of it. By doing that, it showed her she did something really cool and Mommy and Daddy were really excited.

Hope this helps!

My daughter and son had almost the same reaction as yours (only a bit younger) when we switched from bottle to sippy. I did it cold turkey with both of mine and just put up with their attitudes for about 3 days and then it was smooth sailing. The quicker you get them off bottles, the less headache it will be for you in the future. I never mixed formula with milk, although I hear it works for some. I just started introducing whole milk (about 2-4 oz. at a time) during snacks or meals and they really could have cared less. It took them a little while to get used to the coldness once we started full time with whole milk but they do get used to it. I would pour milk when I gave them dinner/lunch and by the time they were done eating it and was ready to drink, the chill would have come off it. Now they both drink a ton of cold milk a day! Good luck!

When my son was about 10 1/2-11 months we started mixing his bottles with 4 oz. formula/4 oz. milk and he did just fine with it. We did that until the formula ran out, so right about the time he turned 1, he was on nothing but whole milk. By 13 months he was weaned off a bottle. He was a child that didn't wanna sit still to drink his bottle, so we just didn't give it to him(otherwise milk would of been all over the house).
As far as the sippy goes, if he likes drinking out of a cup with straw..thats great. Buy some of the take and toss cups with lid/straws and you'll be fine. My son is now 19 months and won't drink out of any other sippy except those with straws, which I think is great. The only time he'll use a regular sippy is near bedtime for his milk, which is the only time he drinks milk now days (he's not a big fan of it during the day).
Hang in there, and your son will learn at his own pace to drink from a sippy or straw sippy!!

My advice from experience is don't put anything else in a bottle except for formula, it makes it easier to take it away in the end. We switched to just strait milk around 11 1/2 months, we didn't mix it just gave more milk and slowly less formula. HTH