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As the title says, how old was your child when you stopped giving them a bottle?
My DS is almost 3 (will be 3 in August) and he still has 2 bottles a day. One for his afternoon nap and the other at bedtime.
Should I start weaning him off the bottle or wait until he decides he doesn't want it anymore?
I'm curious too.
Chocoholic, does your LO still drink their milk from a bottle or a sippy cup?
I changed DD to a sippy cup around her 1st birthday.. She loves her milk first thing in the morning and just before bed.
Do mean off the sippy cup or just stopping the milk thing..?
Nina never used a bottle, she went onto a sippy cup from breast at 7 months. We took that off her at 20 months. The only reason I took it off her as I didn't think she needed it as she was able to drink from a cup. I just threw it in the bin one day.
Izzy never used a bottle either, she went straight from breast to sippy cup, used both uptil she was weaned of the breast at 9months...
Izzy stopped using sippy cup just after two...
But she still has a cup of milk morning and night
We just stopped Olivias bottles last month...so at 2 years and 2 months. It was my choice really because she was drinking so much and needing to have the bottle to sleep. I wanted to change the routine around so we could start thinking about tt. She still asks for her bottle and all I say is that shes a big girl now and has to have a cup. Initially it was a nightmare, but we are all good now.
Well, despite swearing the bottles would be long gone by now, DS (26 months) still has one in the evening :rolleyes:. TBH, I am so relieved that it's only one, and he loves it so much, I don't have the heart to take it away from him.
However, as a dental nurse, it really freaks me out, and I worry about his teeth. I don't let him have it in bed, or go to sleep on it though. I'd like to think we can get rid of it by 2 and a half, but I said that I'd like it to be gone by 18 months and then 2 and that didn't happen, so I'm not holding my breath.
ETA Melissa, how long was it a 'nightmare' for???
sophie had one after lunch from about the ages of 16 months to 26 months, one day i put the cleaning brush through the end of the teat and that was the end of a bottle! she was fine!
Flynn broke his (glass) bottle when he was about 28 months. Ollie still has his (at 19 months).
I, on the other hand, had one til I was about 4. Turns out I used to get out of bed when my dad got up early for work and he got into the habit of giving me a bottle while he made his morning coffee. I don't think it ever occurred to him to wean me earlier LOL!
My DS no longer has a bottle at all. His source of fluids is mostly water in a poptop bottle which he tends to retrieve himself and letting us know when he wants it :)
We stopped around 13 months. He eats enough yoghurt and cheese to not need the milk and both of those are a better source of calcium. Milk takes too much other good stuff to break down IIRC.
Thank you ladies.
I did mean just the bottle, not the milk. He has every other drink in a normal cup (i.e. milk if he asks for it specifically or water mainly but juice in the morning for breakfast) or water bottle. He loves his milk but seems to need the bottle as part of his routine.
Cookiemonster - I agree about the source of calcium being better with other products but DS1 refuses to eat cheese, even though he used to love it. He adores yoghurt and I have had to limit the amount he has in one sitting as I think half a kilo of yoghurt is way to much for his digestion to cope with at once. He just keeps eating and asking for more.
As soon as he has finished his bottle, he will give me the bottle or hop out of bed to put it in the sink if I am not in the room and roll over so he is not sleeping with it and I certainly do not let him suckle it for comfort (sorry, but I used to suck my thumb until I was about 5 and ended up having a fantastic set of bugs bunny teeth so I am very conscious (i.e. paranoid) of not letting my boys have something in their mouth for no reason - thank god for braces!!)
Thanks again!!
Janie...the nightmare was only for about 4 days. I said to her that mummy is throwing away your bottles coz your a big girl now. She cried for it but I just persisted. See what we were doing was giving her milk in bed to go to sleep and I didnt want her to do it anymore, so it was actually hard to change it around. So I sat her down with a cup after bath, then we went in for a story. Its working fine now. The only thing is this week coz shes been sick, shes asked for the bottle...so definately a comfort thing. I think why it worked quickly was because I was ready to make the change!
jack was same only used bottle for milk everything else was in acup or sipper
he all of a sudden about 3mths stopped asking we haven't used a bottle since, he has occasional milk drink in a cup now but he just wants water :) I am one for when they are ready they'll let ya know
Ash will be 3 in Sep and we still use bottle at bedtime, I haven't even tried getting rid of it so don't know how she'll be but atm it doesn't bother me her having it. Like you same thing she drinks her milk gives me bottle and then goes to bed, so from that I don't think there is any harm.
when my little one was a little over two (so just recently now that i think of it) i got the teats out of the dishwasher and cut them up with scissors, then put them back in..... then when she was watching i made a big deal about 'ohhh look the dishwasher has ruined your bottle tops' etc etc, so she saw that they were ruined.... i then used her bottle with one of those green avent spout thingies, which previously she had refused to drink her milk out of.... but once she knew the other bottle teats were ruined and gone, she then reluctantly drank from the green spout, and now there is no issue....
it was very easy actually, i thought it would be a huge drama.... you just have to give them a valid reason why they aren't having their normal bottle anymore, so that they understand, anyways thats what i think.... did the same with her cot too, said we were giving it to a baby she knew, and she helped dismantle it.... in fact i'll probably use this tactic with everything, it makes a lot more sense than just taking something away that they love and hoping they are okay with it.
both my boys were 12 months and a week old. I always did it the week they turned 1. From 1 onwards it was a cup. They only had formula until they were 12 months then they had milk once a day after dinner and water the rest of the time, nothing else (no juice, cordial, fizzy, flavoured anything).
I know it was the right thing to do because now they love water and don't drink anything else, unlike the majority of the kids at their school who get juice and cordial over water.
I think 3 is too old for a bottle personally and would be weaning him ASAP.
DS went onto a cup at 16 months!! :)
DS went down to 1 bottle a day at 10 months, then stopped them altoghether at 13 months. He still has his dummies at 3 years old however...there is always something
We just stopped giving Noah a bottle at 12months and we were amazed when there was no fuss or even asking for "bot bot"
Choc hun, I agree 3 is too old for a bottle - it's purely a habit and not a soother/comforter for him, watch the juice too - try watering it down, they never know ;).:
My first 2 same as Missy - and they wont touch soft drink either LOL and now that is their choice and not my doing IYKWIM.
Zander wont take a bottle so is taking some feed from a cup (only one a day) ...
My Son is just over 3 and still has his bottle of a night when he turned 3 we talked to him about being a big boy now and he came up with " i have no bot bot , no nummies and no nappies i'm big " he collected all his dummies i gave away all his bottles and he tried ever so hard no to have a night nappy ( he just wasn't ready for the no night nappy and is slowly getting there) but then he got ill and wouldn't eat or drink anything we had to revert back to a bottle just so he would take some fluids it was a huge set back as we are now finding it extremely difficult to get him back to where he was . I don't agree with just turfing the things he loves dearly out to satisfy the stigma of what a 3 year old should or should not have .... every child is different and playing it by ear works for us ... good luck with what ever you decide on
Can I ask (maybe a dumb question) why we need to get rid of the bottle? Is there actually a medical/health reason, or is it more because they can't be 20 and drinking milk from a bottle, so at some point you have to phase it out?
Someone mentioned teeth- At some point soon-ish I will make sure DS has his teeth brushed after his bed-time bottle, so I'm not concerned about decay from milk sitting on them, but is there another teeth issue regarding bottles?
Sorry if this is a silly question!!
Hun I dont think it is about satisfying any stigma's - it is about helping them develop. It takes different actions to use a cup than it does a bottle, and helps prepare them to use a cup without lids etc. Every child is different, but there does come a time when they really dont need what they want if that makes sense.:
I suppose my opinion really is if they can drink from a cup and take appropriate amount of fluids - why are they having a bottle still when it is not for any nutritional or medical reason?
Sami, I understand where you're coming from, but it IS a comfort thing, for my child anyway. He gets comfort from plenty of other sources too, but he does love his bottle. I feel that taking it away from him right now would only lead to distress and sleep disturbance. I wouldn't take my boobs, or his teddy away and leave him to cry, so why would I take his bottle? I also have guilt issues (mostly resolved ;)) about him having a bottle at all in the first place, so I feel extra mean to take it away from him. I do understand there is a line, that it will need to go at some point, but I don't feel WE have reached that line yet.
He eats well, is still BF, drinks water out of any sort of cup or drink bottle, so I don't think one bottle at night is going to hinder his development at this point ;). As I said earlier, I would much prefer that he didn't have it, but I would prefer lots of things that I don't get (like a full night's sleep :lol:), but I just have to suck it up. Each time we've dropped a bottle, it's just been getting to the point where I feel I need to intervene, and then he just gives it up on his own. Which makes me feel so much better. Sometimes playing it by ear can be a good thing.
Having said all that, my inner dental nurse would just like to warn everyone that bottles should only be for milk and water ;). And even milk has sugars, so you still need to be careful with that one, little teeth are so easily damaged.
Janie - DS was having a bottle up until a few months ago and easily changed (without distress or anything :o) to a Playtex insulation sippy cup. It has a moon on it and as we are mildly obsessed with the cow jumping over the moon ;) he took to it quite easily for his night milk. Not sure if that is a path you want to take or not though :dunno:
Janie - sorry I was responding to the OP's post - I understand the comfort thing and did say in my first post if he didnt use it as a soother or for comfort, which I read OPs son did not.
I understand entirely about not wanting to take it away from him, my DD had a dummy for a lot longer than I would like - for comfort, different thread though ;)
Sorry Sami, misunderstood, thought you were responding to a post on this page. All good ;).
Michelle, sounds good, it's a path I would love to take! Will give it another go someday.......he has never been interested in drinking milk out of anything but a bottle, whatever the time of day. He obviously has a very strong association between milk and bottle :doh:. I might have a look for that Playtex cup though, where did you get it from?
Just the supermarket - Coles I think. His is purple plus I got another cup at the baby expo so there was a back up ;) DS was very attached to the bottle too and he only ever had milk in the bottle (just water through the day) so I was surprised how easily the transition occurred. But it is worth a try!!
I switched DS to a sippy cup at 6months for both water and milk.
I had been comp feeding and he had had the boob and bottle.
He had no problems drinking fr a sippy cup at 6mths, and since then we've tried different types of sippy cups and he always seems to enjoy something different.
Now he has a water in a straw cup, milk from a kala cup and boob in the morning and night.