Getting rid of the Bottle

Z

zyxwv

Registered User
My (almost) 20 month old son has been drinking fresh milk from a regular cup or straw cup during the day since a little after 15 months but still takes a bottle before bed. Our routine is brush teeth, bath, bottle, quick massage, 2 books then bed. He has been a good sleeper for a long time, so part of me hates to mess with the routine. However, at the very least, he should probably no longer be having anything but water after he brushes his teeth. We are also expecting #2 in October and it just seems like the right time to move him off of a bottle.

Any suggestions on how best to do this? Should I simply dilute the bottle (formula) over time so that it becomes water and then I can just offer that to him in one of his regular cups? If so, at what rate? I was thinking 30 mls per week, but maybe that's too slow.

All thoughts are most appreciated!
 
i just went cold turkey when i dropped my two eldest childrens bottles. i offered a cup of milk before the bedtime routine - so before teeth brushing in your case - then nothing later. Neither of my kids were phased by it at all and i had built it up to be such a major thing. turns out they weren't as attached to it as i thought they were. they certainly didn't drink the same quantity of milk once the bottle was dropped but it didn't impact them in anyway (ie. still slept the same etc)
 
yep, cold turkey too. we also eliminate liquids by 7:30pm (his bedtime is 8:30pm) as his diaper just gets too wet at night. When we transitioned from bottle to cup, we just didn't offer it to him anymore. We also went through a bunch of sippy cups as my son didn't like the hard spouts, but preferred the ones with straws. I think we went through about 3-4 until he found the one he liked. I would say it takes about 2-3 days, but usually out of sight, out of mind. We did this around 22 months and my son is now 33 months. He drips 2 sippy cups of milke (we stopped measuring when he turned 2) as he gets calcium from other sources like cheese.
 
Us too, cold turkey for both boys. Milk with dinner and then bath and bed. If either asked for something to drink we'd offer a cup of water but we've since stopped offering any liquids before bedtime.
 
Yes - cold turkey for us too. My son bit a hole in the teat for the bottle so it was pouring out fast from the bottle and when we replaced it with a new one, it came out too slow so he was getting frustrated. We took that as a sign to move to milk in a sipper cup (he has water in a sipper cup during the day) so now his milk drinks morning and night are in a sipper cup with a straw. As he was already used to having his water in the same cup, it was no drama to have milk in it as well although he was used to lying down for milk and now has to sit up so that was the only transition.
 
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