When did you TOTALLY eliminate the bottle?

[Sarah1]

We still give Audrey a bottle of milk first thing in the morning, right when she wakes up. The rest of the time she uses a sippy cup (the Gerber ones have worked the best although those frickin' valves are going to drive me to drink). I know she's supposed to be transitioned to a cup now, but I don't have the heart to take her one remaining bottle away from her yet...what are others' experiences w/this transition?

BTW, I talked to my mom last night and she discovered that someone she knows (a father of two) STILL GIVES HIS 7 AND 9 YEAR OLD BOYS A BOTTLE OF MILK AT NIGHT. Is that not bizarre??????

[RiaHannam]

Well it's all a matter of what you want to do. With my first two boys they were off between 12-14 mos. My third was off around the same time but then we reintroduced it at 18 or so mos because of some medical issues he was having (trying to get more calories in him - turns out he had Celiac Disease) then eliminated it shortly after his diagnosis.

The one bottle that Audrey gets in the morning is really no big deal. Is it a comfort for her? To me, why take away a good thing? Eventually when you feel her bottle needs to go you can try to wean her slowly... perhaps offering a brand new sippy cup at those times.

Now I do find 7 & 9 yr olds a tad old for a bottle! It's really not good for their teeth (sugars and orthodontic wise)!

I am nursing my last born and I don't plan on quitting nursing at 1 yr - and if I were bottle feeding I probably wouldn't quit entirely at a year either - it would be a slow process and I don't see the problem with one bottle a day as part of a comfort routine.

So just go with your gut on this one - and perhaps Audrey will surprise you one day by not even wanting it!

[vikivoly]

DD is 13 1/2 months and she takes an evening bottle. She isn't too attached to it and I know she wouldn't have a problem if I took it away. The problem is she doesn't drink a whole lot of fluids otherwise. Not counting her bottle, she usually on takes between 4-10 oz of milk, juice, and water combined. I was afraid to take her bottle away because she usually takes all 8oz at night and I felt she needed it. But, yesterday asked her Ped. about it and he said that she'll make up for it. He wants me to take her off completely now. He's afraid that the older she gets, the more she'll become attached to it. He said he doesn't like to see babies over 1 1/2 yrs taking a bottle at all.

As for the 7 and 9 yr olds getting a bottle at night, I feel sorry for them at sleepovers!

[egoldber]

Sarah got her last bottle when she was about 15 months old. She had been down to just her last bottle at night for abut a month at that point. One night I decided just to not give her that bottle. She never missed it, and we've never used one since.

IMO, it will be easier if you take it away sooner rather than waiting longer. She will just get more attached to it.

[egoldber]

My experience was just as your ped described. Her fluid intake dipped for about a week after stopping the bottle. But she then started drinking a lot more from the cup to compensate.

HTH,

[Momof3Labs]

We stopped Colin's rare bottles about a month ago. Actually, he decided that he didn't want them any more, though he still nurses 3x a day.

[jal]

Our son is 17 months old and he still gets a small bottle at bed time and expect to cut that out soon.

[macassi]

We eliminated the bottle at 30 months. (2.5 yrs) Eeek! We were headed down the bottle elimination road for his 2 year well check-up, when the doctor said, "if taking a bottle is your son's only comfort object, I really don't care -- it's not like he'll take it to college with him." After that, I got pretty relaxed, and he probably used the bottle more. I decided that other people didn't seem to have a binky or thumb issue at 2, so since it really was my son's comfort object, I wouldn't push it. He never had it after brushing teeth, and it was really a first thing in the morning fix for him.

We basically stopped allowing the bottle anywhere other than our house. We'd go on vacation and say, "oh no, Grandma and Grandpa don't have any bottles at their house -- you'll need to use a cup." He never questioned it. Last summer, we went on vacation and he never once asked for a bottle. We figured it was a good sign, and the "bottle fairy" visited our house while we were gone and we returned to a house with no bottles. He asked once or twice when we got home and never seemed to care.

I was worried we would need to revisit the issue when DD was born. I even got different bottles so that he wouldn't see "his" brand of bottle and want to use it. It was never an issue. He knew that the bottles were for Abbie and never asked to use one again.

[JElaineB]

DS still gets two bottles a day. Once after lunch/before nap and one after dinner/before getting ready for bed. I think I missed the "window of opportunity" to get him off; if I try to give him a sippy cup of milk instead of his "ba-ba" he refuses the cup and cries (whines) until I give him the bottle. I have tried for a few months to get him to drink milk out of a cup but he has never really drank it from a cup even at other times during the day. I am switching him over to straw cups instead of sippy cups for his water throughout the day, so maybe I will try the milk in a straw cup soon instead of the bottle.

My ped of course wanted him off the bottle yesterday, and my MIL (who watches DS two half-days a week) thinks there's no rush. I guess my take is that I have let him give me indications for readiness in other areas (sleeping, eating, etc.) and that has worked out well, so I will keep trying with milk in straw or sippy cups but at this point wait until he "decides" he is ready to fully give up the bottle.

Jennifer
mom to Jacob 9/27/02

[peasprout]

Maybe she won't even miss it? Especially if she's already used to sippy cups. We eleminated the bottle for DD around her first birthday (which is a day after Audreys birthday!). She didn't like the sippy at first, but I kept trying and once I went cold turkey she got used to it. I also started warming the milk to make it more appealing. She likes the First Years Take and Toss cups (the disposable ones) because it flows faster.