Phasing out the bottle....

Maya left hers out for Santa at 22 mths and he left her a special new cup in replacement. She was happy with that, but then she was quite cognitively aware, the gremlins are 23 mths now and they're nowhere near being able to understand that concept. I'm happy for them to keep having bottles for now anyway, in the grand scheme of things I'd rather fight the sleep battle than the bottle one!

I don't see the point in forcing it personally. Daniel still has it from a bottle. I'm waiting until he can successfully have a drink out of a cup by himself without half of it ending up down his front and him wanting to put his hand in the cup to play with the drink. Then I'll get rid of the bottle.

Yeah Spencer was like that which was part of our problem but one night I just thought nope your having whatever you take from the cup and then going to bed, so he hardly had anything and then in the morning drank a whole feed from the cup and has done ever since. I was prepared for him to wake in the night but he didn't and i think once he realised no bottle was coming he stopped messing about.

Yeah when I say cup I mean non spill sippy cup, not an actual cup.

I found Spencer made more of a mess with his bottle than the cup cos he would wave that around everywhere as well but the milk would shoot out of it, normally all over me or the sofa. The cup is soooo much better and was another reason for getting rid of the bottles.

Yep Spencer has an avent one for his water and a tommee tippee one with a soft non spill bit for his milk, later the lid comes off the tommee tippee one so can be used as a normal cup but with handles. The way Spencer throws his cups around there is no way he would be given one without a lid (unless it was a nice day and we were outside).

It's up to you really, I do wonder how much worry it is when they are only having 2 bottles a day but just figured that I would get rid of them sooner rather than later.
Spencer still has his milk when he first gets up in the morning, just now I take the cup in instead of his bottle, i'm loathe to change that cos it's the only time I get nice cuddles. At night he has his milk at 6ish in the lounge but doesn't go to bed till 7 so it was never part of his sleep routine. But then I never gave bottles or boobie before a sleep cos I didn't want to create that association. In fact our sleep routine probably is contrary to every book etc you will read cos it normally happens with a lot of noise and laughing and no winding down

I went to Plunket yesterday & our nurse also mentioned starting to phase out bottles from 12 months on. She didn't say why & I should've asked in hindsight .

She suggested offering milk in a sippy cup with a lid & straw. She then went on to mention that you could still give a bottle at night?? Or maybe I misunderstood her . I'll cross this bridge a bit later on.

My plunket nurse didn't even ask me about ditching the bottle so I asked her and she said theres no real reason to ditch it. Parents choose to do so because they want to. She said she doesn't tell parents to ditch the bottle until older. She also said toddlers can create an attachment to sippy bottles too so I come back to my original thought, whats the point? lol

Definitely going to wait until he can do a normal cup properly

yeah i meant sippy cup not normal cup.

One of my main reasons for thinking about changing is the non spill cups because we have the nuby non spill bottles but hes worked out that if you hold the tip at a certain point with your fingers or up against the ground or wall then the valve opens so not non spill anymore!!

I think i have now decided that i will throw the bottles away and do what you did cuppatea and give him no alternative so if he doesnt drink all his milk from the cup then thats just tough titties!

sally belly wrote: She suggested offering milk in a sippy cup with a lid & straw.

I have been trying to give Lauren her lunchtime bottle in a cup with a straw for the last month or so and she still hasn't accepted it, takes a sip and spits it all out

Yet if I put water in the cup she will drink the whole 200mls without stopping

I Let my Lachie keep the bottle till he was 2 just for before his luch sleep and night time sleep then i seized the opportunity to get rid of it when he had a terrble tummy bug and could not have the bottle so he did not miss it so much when he was well. He then went to a water bottle and slowly a cup (not sipper cup)

Was at plunket the other day and they said to start phasing out the bottle but should also look at cutting down to one "cup" of milk by 12 months

She also suggeted to me (as I think Cuppatea said) to start weaning the bottle/bed routine. So look at keeping the cup of milk at lunch time as its easier to get rid of the bottle if its not assocaited with sleep.

Who knows what I will do!