Weaning off of Bottle. Sippy Cups, Regular Cups. . . I Have Questions

Have you tried sippy cups with soft spouts? My son never took the hard spout ones or even medium soft ones but likes the soft spout sippy cups(we use Little Munchkin). Now he can drink just fine from hard spout sippy cups but not interested in taking more than a few sips. I give him his soft spout one and he finishes his milk and asks for more. From my experience, you will have to try a few sippy cups until you find the one he takes.
I would get rid of the bottles now. I don't know how different it is drinking from bottle vs sippy but I would suggest stopping bottles right now before it becomes a habit and he won't let you take away his bottles. It's easier to do it now.
At my son's daycare , they started introducing regular cups at 14 months or so and when he moved to a toddler room at 16 months , they did not have sippy cups anymore. He still uses sippy at home.
If you don't want to transition to sippy and then to regular cups, now may be a good time to get him to start learning to use regular cups. Yes, he will spill a lot and lot of mess, but will eventually get it.

I'm pretty old fashioned myself, not first time, not young at all. I believe that for many children, it will be a bottle, thumb, or pacifier. I HATE pacifiers and the thumb is a night-mare. I believe the bottle is the least of all deamons. It's the one that they will NOT still be with at 4, 5, 6, 7, and gasp, 8 years and on.

The big problem is teeth. Most people that do bottles will let them fall asleep with them and then they won't brush the teeth. BUT, I know from my own years of eating after I've brushed my teeth at night, my teeth don't rot out of my head if I brush good morning and night and sometimes mid day.

We make far too much of a lot of things. My grandson didn't get rid of the bottle until around age 2. Most of my girls got rid of the bottle around age 2.5. My one daughter that stopped at 1 year ended up starting thumb sucking AFTER she turned 2 and then it was many years to get her weaned from the thumb. From 1 to 2 she did not use anything. So It's not something you can get past and then just assume you are in the clear.

I have never understood the need to get them off the bottle and onto a sippy
cup. What is the difference? I equate it to someone taking your morning
coffee away. My kids had their bottles to around two. They understood that
as they lost them, I would not replace. When the last one got lost in the
grocery store, that was it. They all grew up normally! So don't fight it,
let him have his milk in his bottle.

Just do, as you feel is best.
Don't worry, they will not go to Kindergarten still on a bottle.

Or try a toddler straw cup. Its a cup with a cover and you stick a straw in it.
Found in the kid/baby aisle at drug stores.
(oh sorry, you already tried the straw cup).

There is no one age, in which kids wean off of drinking apparatuses.
It is what the parent wants.
And it is also cultural too.

Don't worry.

He also may be chewing on the top of the bottles, because he is teething.

Kids/babies like their bottles, because it has a "nipple" on it. And this is instinctual and milk comes from a "nipple" so thus of course it is a comfort or the preferred thing a child wants to drink from.

Throw them away. He'll forget about it in a couple of days. Trust me, you do NOT want to have to fight that battle further down the road and NO, he will not lose interest in it by his own volition. The longer you wait, the harder it will be to get rid of that bottle.

A sippy cup is no better than a bottle. There is nothing so bad about a bottle. My daughter drank her milk from a bottle at nap and bedtime until she was 3 years old. The comfort and cuddle time was precious. At no age was she put to bed with a bottle or allowed to carry one around with her. At mealtimes, she drank from a regular cup, no cover, from 14 months on. She hated all types of sippy cups and I didn't blame her, have you tried drinking from them? You have to suck really hard!

Sippy cups are a recent invention, they didn't exist when I was a child. After trying some, and now hearing so many moms with similar questions to yours, I think they were invented as one more thing for moms to worry about! Let your son drink from his bottle as long as you are comfortable with it. When my daughter was approaching three, I told her that 3 year-olds didn't need to drink from bottles and she agreed. No fuss, no problem. She has perfectly straight and healthy teeth (she's 9 now).

I can't remember the reasoning but I heard straws were not good for kids his age because of the way you put your mouth. I don't know that I believe all 'they' say though. I have seen kids these days go from bottle that they love to sippy cup that they love and carry around and want to sleep with like they wanted a bottle at bedtime, etc. I don't see the difference. My first kids had bottles until about your sons age and went to regular cups at meal time. No problem except for spilling. I did have a couple with lids that they took if we went somewhere or to eat out. Some of our kids had the bottles longer than others. Some of the ones who had it longer did not have braces on their teeth, some who gave it up early did have braces. Some slept with a bottle like I would never do again ( first ones ) and yet none of my 8 kids ever had a cavity. So you just have to decide what you think is best and of course keep the teeth brushed no matter what you choose. I think children have to grow up too fast these days so it is just a matter of why you want to get him on a sippy/cup. There is a big jump in maturity usually from 14 months to 18 months or so too. He may want a cup by then.

I just kept offering the sippy and eventually she moved on. My DD was still nursing or using a bottle for a few meals at 18 months. I also discovered that she likes straws, so that helped us, too. My DD is not a huge fan of milk, so we have to make sure she drinks fortified juice or eats cheese and yogurt. I say keep working on it with him and ease him into a sippy for more and more of his drinks. He may firmly associate the bottle with milk, so what if you started giving him water in the bottle and milk in the sippy? Or try a straw at the table? I find that none of these milestones happen without a few spills. My DD does NOT want a lid anymore and delights in getting her own straw...but with an open cup I've gone to white grapejuice....

Keep encouraging him to try the cup and maybe offer him milk another way, like in one of those bowls with a straw on the side. See what he does with it.

Secondarily, like with nursing to sleep, I think part of the answer is to change the routine. With DD, I cut her sessions shorter and shorter til she was barely nursing at all. Maybe start cutting back the amt. of milk per bottle til he's not really getting anything out of it anymore, and can look to other avenues. And change his bedtime routine so his snuggles come while you read a book instead.

DO brush his teeth after a bottle. Do not let him fall asleep with it or go to bed with it. It will pool and rot his teeth.

I view sippy cups as training tools and use them now only if we are in the car and I don't want DD to spill.

Let me start off by saying I am one lucky momma! My son quit taking the bottle on his first birthday, and was never picky about what kind of sippy cup he had, as long as he was getting a drink. However, I think he was about 2 and a half before I tried introducing a cup without a lid, and we started out with the tiny Dixie cups with water at supper time, and built up from there. As for your question,"What's the big deal about him using a sippy instead of a bottle?" I think for me the main issue was the development of his teeth. My little sister has horrible teeth, because she refused to give up the bottle and her pacifier. All that sucking caused her to be majorly buck-toothed. Her top teeth stick way out over her bottom teeth, and some of them over lap. That being said, don't let anyone make you feel like you are doing anything wrong! I would just start slow, maybe try starting him with the bottle, and asking about half way through if he wants to switch it to a big boy cup. Then bring him into the kitchen with you and let him see you pour the milk from the bottle to the sippy, so he knows it's the same thing, before heading back to the chair, and continue to cuddle, while helping him hold the sippy cup. Also, make absolutely certain the spout of the sippy is completely clean, and the holes aren't plugged up. Even though I always used the dishwasher for his sippy cups, I still found that sometimes the holes wouldn't get completely cleaned out, and his first taste would make him gag, causing him to refuse what was in the cup.

My best advice is to do what feels right for you and your baby and ignore the gasps and disapproval of ignorant strangers and "friends!" I too have had to deal with unwanted remarks about my babies "still" doing something or "not yet" doing something and it is such a waste of time! My oldest is 9 now and there is absolutely no difference between her and a child who, say, was weaned earlier or used the potty earlier, she is smart and funny and kind and creative, she is even on the honor roll. So WHAT if your baby still takes a bottle now and then, it will not really harm him! There is a slim chance he will need braces, but he may need braces anyway, or not need them anyway! If he plays certain wind instruments when he gets older they will do far more to misalign his teeth than a bottle ever could! Enjoy your baby while he is still small, he will be in grade school (or grad school!) before you know it and you will really miss that morning milk cuddle time.

The difference between the bottle and the sippy has to do with their teeth. The bottle, because the nipple goes past the teeth and rests on the tongue, can cause the teeth to grow in the wrong direction. The spout on a sippy does not rest on their tongue, so it does not interfere with their teeth.

At 14 months I would not be the least bit concerned with drinking out of a regular cup. The sippy is fine!

I asked my ped about my (almost) 3 year old using a sippy, and she said it was absolutely fine as long as he knew how to use a regular cup. He goes to daycare, so he knows how to use a regular cup. I just really like having the sippy cups because they can leave the table without me cleaning up a bunch of spills everyday.

We just did regular cups - never saw the point of teaching him that you can hold a cup upside down and then teaching him again. He started with small amounts of liquid in a regular cup at 9 months (his daycare did this) and was competent with small amounts at a year or so. Of course there will be spills - primarily when he was not paying attention or DH grabbed at the cup because he 'saw' an impending disaster. We gave up all daytime bottles by 12 months and the before bed one at 13 months. I put it off because I assumed it would be traumatic but one day I just gave him a cup before bed instead of a bottle and he could not have cared less.

the difference is in how transitioning aids in development of your son's mouth, dentition, & speech.

Just as a pacifier will "cant" those front teeth outward, so will a nipple & the spout on a sippy cup. I worked in the dental field & saw this phenomenon many times. It truly can happen.

With my daycare kids, they're fully on the cup by age 1 or a little past. The lids are removed from the sippy cups by 18 months or so. Usually a little before that.

& for the children who won't accept milk from the sippy cup, then I just stand strong & don't give in. Eventually, it will happen....when the child is thirsty enough. So far every single family has also followed this process at home....with all bottles gone right after that 1st birthday. Patience & fortitude.....& it will happen!