Trying to Take My Daughter off the Bottle

K.~My son just turned 1 on March 6th and he's been off the bottle for about a week now. I bought Nuby sippy cups at Walmart for like $1.88 and he loves them. He made the transition from his bottles seamlessly. They have a silicone spout on them like his bottle did. When I was transitioning him from his formula to cows milk (which he HATED at first) I did 1/2 formula & 1/2 milk, then just tapered off the formula to where he was drinking nothing but milk (which he now loves). He's got 6 teeth so it's pretty easy to feed him table food. He gets breakfast (pancakes, frech toast, kolaches, or something else) with milk, lunch around 11:30, snack around 3:30 (fruit, cheese and mini ritz, animal cookies, jello), dinner around 6, then if he needs it, a small bed time snack. I make his milk and 4 oz of juice available to him throughout the day. He really doesn't ever take a cup before bed, but I do offer him a small cup of milk just in case.

Hope this helps. Just follow her lead. You really want her to be on the 3 meals a day + 1-2 snacks. I think fruit makes a wonderful snack personally.

Have a wonderful day.

Hope this helps

I wouldn't give her whole milk this early. I'd wait until the doctor suggests it. However, I never gave my last son whole milk. He's almost 5 and has never had whole milk. I put him on 2% after formula, and now I have him and his brothers down to 1% milk. Whole milk is so heavy.

The Nuby $1.88 cups at Walmart are great for transitioning to the bottle. You just have to replace them. After awhile, they can leak. Other than that, they are great.

I think you're doing a great job getting her off the bottle by the time she's one. I did it very similarly to the way you are doing it, mixing the formula with the milk. As for getting her off of the last two bottles, I would just switch the bottles to sippy cups whenever you are ready. I never gave my kids a bottle to take to bed, but they did have middle of the night feedings, so a sippy cup works fine for that. Also, in response to some of the other posts, I know doctors may have differing opinions, but the two pediatricians that I have had both said that babies and toddlers need the fat in whole milk and insisted that I not give my boys 1% or 2% milk until they were older. You may want to check with your doctor to see what he/she advises. I'm sorry I can't remember about food and how much to give. My kids are older (4 and 10), so it's been too long for me to remember how much they ate as babies. Have fun with your baby girl!

I took my daughter, who is now almost 2, off the bottle at 11 months. I only gave her 2% or low fat milk (she was on Soy formula before that) and NEVER gave her a bottle at night, as she had teeth already and giving them a bottle at night causes tooth decay. She was fussy for the first few days, but forgot about it completely shortly after. As for the food, just feed her as you would eat yourself. Breakfast such as egg or oatmeal with fruit, small snack such as piece of orange, banana, toddler cookie,then lunch, small snack, dinner, small snack. I even gave her a few ounces of water in the summer time sine she was also born in May and it was hot when we took her off the bottle. A good vitamin like fruit flavored Poly-Visol in good for them too, since they are not getting "all the nutruients" from breasr milk or formula and food alone.
good luck

She really should be getting formula, and not whole milk at this point. Formula has a lot more nutrition than regular milk. Has your ped told you to switch her yet? Generally, we're told to hold off on introducing milk until after their 1st birthday. It's great that she's good with solids; however, keep in ;mind that the bulk of her nutrition should still be from formula or breast milk during the first year, so keep that in mind.