When did you get rid of the bottle?

[BrightSparkles]

When did you get rid of the bottle in your house? I'm not sure when I should start thinking about this process

[Artechim]

We just got rid of ours last week because I noticed that DS has the start of tooth decay on his front teeth from drinking a bottle at bedtime.

BTW, is your sig right? It looks like your DD is only 5 months old?

[BrightSparkles]

We just got rid of ours last week because I noticed that DS has the start of tooth decay on his front teeth from drinking a bottle at bedtime.

BTW, is your sig right? It looks like your DD is only 5 months old?

DD is 17months and i'm 5 months pg with number two.

[Curly]

The standard advice is to get rid of it at about 12 months. The reasons behind it are that this is the age where they really need to be getting more of their nutrients from food and they won't be hungry if they are filling up on milk. They should have the motor skills to drink from a sippy cup. And the sooner you get rid of it the easier it is...before it is a difficult habit to break.

I know a couple of friends who pooh-poohed this advice and are now having no end of trouble trying to get their 3 year olds to stop drinking milk from a bottle.

I got rid of the bottle with DS at 13 months, no problems. But DD simply will NOT drink milk from a sippy cup, cold, warm, flavoured, from a straw, from a spout...I've tried all combinations.

So she still has a bottle at 15 months because otherwise she will not drink milk at all and otherwise I'd be getting hardly any dairy into her...because she is not keen on cheese or yoghurt and will only eat them very occasionally. She gets 180ml in the morning when she wakes up and in the evening after bath and before bed...and occasionally an extra 180ml if she wakes up in the night and we cannot settle her back to sleep any other way. Otherwise she is a fabulous eater.

Re the teeth issue, I understand that comes from having a bottle in the cot with them and sucking themselves off to sleep and having the milk pooling around the teeth. DD never goes to bed with a bottle...she's too lazy to hold it herself anyway, bottle time = cuddle time.

She does like playing with DS' sippy cups so we are going to try again with milk in the sippy cup in a couple of months "see, just like your big brother!". I hate the bottle, I hate the messing around with teats and whatnot and I personally don't like seeing older children with a bottle...but that's just me. At the moment I feel that getting the milk into her is more important than the vessel in which it is contained but I still intend to ditch it as soon as I possibly can.

[BrightSparkles]

Thanks Curly.
She only has a bottle at sleep time (300ml at lunch and 300ml at night time) and she will usually finish it before actually getting into bed.
I might try giving it to her out of a sippy cup before she goes to bed. Shes pretty good like that.

[hj1981]

Miss B is now 15mths and has weened herself down to one bottle and thats before bed - looks like that won't be lasting for too much longer though!

[widdly]

DS was down to just a moring and night bottle at 10 months. Stopped bottles altogether at 13 months with no probs. He is nearly 4 and still has his dummies though...

[amberj]

I did some research on this a little while ago because I had the MCHN telling me to get DS off bottles, but with only vague reasons why.

It seems like there are three main issues with bottles. One is, as mentioned above, the possibility of tooth decay due to milk staying on the teeth. The second is that its very easy to drink lots of milk from a bottle, and it fills them up so they don't eat enough other food. And the third is that bottles can promote ear infections because they are more likely to drink them lying down, and drinking lying down means fluid can get in the ears.

But for us, we don't give bottles in bed (unless its a very horrible sleep night)- we always brush DS's teeth after his bottle before bed, so the first issue doesn't really seem to apply to us. The second issue doesn't either because he only has one, sometimes two bottles a day and doesn't actually drink very much of them. And as for the third issue, you can sit your LO up having a bottle in only a semi-reclined position, which avoids the ear problem.

So after all this, it seemed to me that we were ok to continue with bottles for the pre-bed milk. I guess I just don't see the need to go through the fuss of trying to get rid of the bottle (I tried once and it didn't go down well), when I don't really see any harm in continuing with it.

Does anyone know of anything I am missing??

[BekZ]

DD1 we got rid of day bottles at 12 months and night bottle at 2.

DD2 we got rid of day bottles at 14 months and night bottle at 2.

We have never given our bubs bottles for bed and we always brushed their teeth before bed.

Sippy cups are an excellent way to help the weaning process. YOu'll notice that they drink less from a sippy cup, but don't be concerned because food is supposed to be their main source of nourishment.

[JCE0810]

DD weaned herself off bottles in her own time, i think she was 13 or 15months when she completely weaned herself.

[LMS]

Our 22month old DD still has a bottle a bit after she gets up and a bottle before bedtime. I think its about 260mls.
With the morning bottle there is about 1 hour before breakfast and the night time one she has before brushing her teeth and stories. She really likes it and milk is so good for them. It doesn't seam to be a problem with her and meals.

[Jewel]

For us it was last week. Lol. DS2 is 18months old.
I can't really rememember how old DS1 was but I do know he was yougner then DS2 was.

[Rainbow_Mumma]

dd2 is 17 months old and very very attached to her bottle i would love for her to give it up but i dont think she will "let go" she wont really drink from her sippy cup she just plays with it