Planning to nurse until a year as I did with my first, but second is getting toothy and starting to hold on with them while he nurses...ouch! He doesn't really take a bottle, so I'm wondering if I should just skip it and put more energies into a sippy? Waited until 12 months for cow's milk before -- will those 4 weeks make that much of a difference?
Thanks.
Definitely a cup. There's no reason to try and get him ON a bottle just to take him off of it. If he's old enough to drink things that don't come out of a breast he's old enough not to drink from a breast substitute.
If he struggles with a sippy, he may even do better with those tiny dixie cups with just a little in there.
Good luck.
I've been dealing with the same thing here. I did not bother With a bottle. We went right to a sippy. He had been using it already and so far our transition has been fine. I've been pumping and mixing it with whole milk. Gradually increasing the ratio of whole milk to breast milk. I think I was more upset than our little guy. I miss that little bit of snuggle time we had. Other than that the transition has been pretty easy on me too. Good luck! Hope your transition is as easy as ours has been.
I asked my dr. if my daughter could start at 11 mos. with cow's milk in a sippy because she also did not take a bottle, and I wanted to wean her at 12 months. She said fine. The main reason for no cow's milk before a year is that they don't want you to substitute it for breastmilk or formula, which have more nutrients. If your son is eating a variety of healthy foods, he should be fine with milk to drink in a sippy with his meals. They don't need as much milk as they did BM or formula, because that was their food. From 12 mos. on, milk is a drink, not food.
Cup. He may want it slightly warm, since he used to BM.
So try it both temps.
go to sippy cup if you pump do like 3oz BM 1oz milk then slowly go down in BM and up in milk. they have some pretty cool sippies out there. We started with the NUK soft sippy nipple thing with handles then moved to the hard mouth piece then to the playtex spin type of cap with spill stopper. I did not want her to get hooked on the mouth piece style so as soon as she was comfortable with the straw style that is what we went to asap.I too BF and slowly worked her into milk before her 1st bday. We did use the step 2 formula for toddlers also she enjoyed that plus it still gave her the antioxidents and vits she may have lacked from not eating a full meal.
If you search the topic's here you can see how to transition the baby to milk without having it become such an issue.
I think that the child's body needs time to get used to the milk and to get used to the taste. Transitioning them for a month surely makes it much easier.
Pump and use it to mix the milk with it. There are tons of moms who say the same thing. Go 2 oz. milk to 6 oz formula or breast milk, do a week or so then go half and half. After a week or so go 6 oz. milk to 2 oz. breast milk. This will allow your breast milk to lessen and also get him used to the taste.
A drink is a drink is a drink. That's why having a bottle until they a older is not a big deal. If they are drinking milk it is milk and it is going in the mouth. It does not matter in what kind of container it goes into the mouth through. Not holding it in their mouth all night with milk dripping onto their teeth is the right way to prevent tooth rot.
I agree with the others - skip the bottle.
You'll figure out your own comfort level with the mixing formula and milk. We did increasing percentages - mainly just to make sure our son didn't have allergies.
A note on sippy cups. As new parents we had no idea the difference between sippy mechanisms. I would advise starting with two styles. Our son wouldn't do the "straw" style recommended for newbies, but he did great on the NUK ones that he squezzes the sippy part to open the valve. We mistakenly bought more, but those had a suction sippy part - he didn't take to that either.
My point is that you may run into some adjustments getting the right sippy cup - but don't let that deter you. After a few days - we put away all the bottles (two days ago in fact), and now he's on 100% vitamin D (whole) milk.
Skip to the sippy. Heck skip to a cup during meals with the milk. My daughter wouldn't take straight milk until about 13 months we had to do a 50 50 split and it had to be warm then we went to 100%milk warmed and then we gradually just took the temp down a little at a time. She is now 14months drinking cold milk. She is still using a bottle though. She won't talk milk from a sippy or cup at this time. We keep trying. She will only nurse or get milk from the bottle. And only takes water from sippy and cup.
At 10months also I was giving my dd yogurt made with whole millk and my ped said if wanted to start milk earlier we could but since she was nursing and I had enough BM stored we kept with the BM.
Our son just turned one and we are in the process of weaning. He never took a bottle either so we just use a sippy and have a couple of different kinds. He really likes the ones with the straws too. He wasn't too sure about the milk for the first week or so, but would take water from a sippy cup. I tried mixing and that didn't seem to be helping the pumped supply was dwindling so I just put whole milk in a sippy each day and offered it several times. After a few days he started taking more and now drinks a couple of ounces of milk a day, but has been increasing more and more each day. He also drinks water during the day and nurses at night. Good luck and hope he likes milk!
We switched at 10 months - pediatrician said cow's milk was fine (whole milk)
Skip the bottle, go straight to a sippy cup and small amounts in a regular cup.
Check with his pediatrician for the go-ahead, then use a sippy, and start by giving him 75% breast milk/25% cow's milk for a few days, then 50/50 a few days, then 25/75, then all cow's milk...go by his cues, stretch the days to a week if needed, he should be weaned in a few. : )
