OK, How do you do this?

[farsk]

Hello Everyone!

Help desperately needed! Ellen's first birthday was Friday (yay!!!) and I continue to nurse her and pump and send milk to school every day in bottles. At what point (if ever) should I transfer my milk into sippy cups and let her get my milk that way rather than a bottle? On the one hand, I want my milk to come from a "nursing environment" and to me that means sucking to get it, ie through a bottle. On the other hand, I know lots of nuring moms who have never introduced a bottle and milk comes from a cup or mom. So what do you do? I know that her teachers give her her milk before naps, and Ellen nurses before bed. I just don't know what to do!

Thanks!

[drsweetie]

Hi Shannon! Love your daughter's name. :) I guess this is kind of a personal decision -- is the issue that you want Ellen to learn to drink from a cup, no matter what's in it, or that you want her to only drink BM from some kind of nipple, but learn to drink other things from a cup?

In my case, I wanted Laura to learn to drink from a cup, period, and since she turned a year old in June and we've slowly been weaning for a while I was comfortable with the possibility that she might begin to prefer the cup to me. What I've done is send her to daycare with bottles of milk but put an empty sippy cup in the bag. That way her teachers can try the sippy cup out, but the bottle's there to fall back on in case things don't go well with the cup. (This has actually been going on for a while -- Laura was VERY reluctant to take bottles or sippy cups for a long time, so getting her to the point where I can be confident that she'll drink from a cup took some effort.)

I'm not sure if this answers your question.

[nitaghei]

Shannon,

It's really up to you, and whatever you feel comfortable with. What I did was transition DS to cow's milk in a bottle, at 14 months, over 5 weeks, gradually changing the proportion of EBM and cow's milk . He was doing only 1 bottle a day then, and I wanted to stop pumping. When he was drinking all cow's milk, I switched to a sippy. That way, he was off bottles by the time he was 15 months old. He's still nursing, BTW, though I'm trying to wean.

I just wanted to get rid of the bottle before it became an issue. And it wasn't a big deal, because the bottle was never a source of comfort for DS, unlike nursing.

Not sure if that helped!

Nita
mom to Neel, January 2003
dog mom to a cocker and a PWD

[stillplayswithbarbies]

Our day care provider started putting the breastmilk in a sippy cup, and also offering water in a sippy cup for practice. If Logan seemed to need extra cuddling, she would give the bottle. (The bottle right before nap remained as a bottle longer than the rest.)

By 14 months, she was drinking all breastmilk at daycare from a sippy cup. When we started cow's milk, she was already used to the sippy cup.

...Karen
Jacob Nathaniel Feb 91
Logan Elizabeth Mar 03

[sntm]

Jack started rejecting bottles, which is how we transitioned! We used the Nuby cups, which are closest to a bottle nipple (soft sillicone).

Happy belated b-day to Ellen, and welcome to the ranks of extended pumpers!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
shannon
not-even-pregnant-yet-overachiever
trying-to-conceive :)
PREGNANT! EDD 6/9/03
mama to Jack 6/6/03