How can I get my son to drink milk again?

[hbangthompson]

My 15-month old refuses to drink anything but water out of cups. Since he's been weaned from a bottle, he hasn't had milk. He won't use the sippy cups we've tried to give him milk in, and although he likes to drink out of regular glasses, he won't drink anything but water. He'll ask for milk, but just refuses to drink it out of a cup. We've tried different cups, sport bottles, funny straws, and chocolate milk. We've been making up the missed calcium from cheese, whole milk yogurt, and other foods, but it would make me feel better nevertheless if he went back to drinking milk...from a cup. Any ideas?

[dd_ani]

You might go back to a bottle for milk for a few days and then try to gradually switch. I don't know what type of bottles you have, but maybe if you take the nipple off and just let him drink from the bottle part, it would help. Then you could switch to a cup.

I think there are a lot of kids that have odd preferences like that. My 13 month old refuses to take anything but milk/formula from a bottle and we are just starting sippy cups.

Anybody else out there with a kid who has a preference for a certain liquid out of a certain type of container?


Good luck,

Michelle

[egoldber]

How long have you been trying? When we weaned Sarah off daytime bottles, it probably took her almost two weeks to really start drinking milk again from the sippy.

I know you feel anxious, but they do not NEED milk. Not like they needed formula or breastmilk. They can get all the nutrition that is in whole milk from other sources. Personally, I would not go back to bottles, because it is 100% harder to do the bottle weaning a second time, when they are older, wiser and more willful. I would just keep trying.

If it makes you nervous, call your ped and ask how you can meet his needs for fat and calcium.

HTH,

[sweetbasil]

We bought a small bottle of the Nestle's strawberry milk (pre-mixed) and added enough of that to DS's whole milk- just so that it had a tinge of pink. He really liked it. That got him over the fear of cups AND milk- now we'll do whole usually, and for a treat, strawberry or chocolate.

Good luck!