Taking off Bottle!!

I remember when my daughter was two she was still addicted to the pacifier and the bottle. So we decided to stop the pacifier first. we just only allowed it at nap time. then only at night. Once it was done she really didn't miss it. then we moved on to the bottle. what we did was just watered down the milk. the first night we started with 1 oz. water. 7 oz. milk then next night 2 oz. water 6 oz. milk. then by the end of the week she was left with only 1 oz. milk all water. she realized it was nolonger appitizing and she didn't want it any more. In all honestly we were really worried about nothing because she really didn't miss them.

C.,

It's probably best just to take it away from him "cold turkey." My daughter was 2.5 and still had a huge bottle addiction. I told her for several days beforehand that we were going to give her bottle to the other little babies that need them. When the day came, we took all of the bottles and put them away. From then on, I only offered her the sippy cup. She had used a sippy cup before for juice and such, but she would only drink milk from the bottle. She did cry for a couple of days, but after that she was fine.

The bottle can really mess up their teeth. We visited the dentist a few weeks after we got rid of the bottle, and she showed us my daughter's teeth. There was a huge gap between her top teeth and her bottom teeth. Her bottom teeth were at an angle and pointed towards the back of her mouth. They had to do that to make room for the nipple. Her teeth corrected themselves after a month or so.

What seems to also work is putting the beloved milk in a sippie cup and switching the bottle to water only. My kids always wanted their milk, the bottle seemed insignificant after awhile. The bottles just disappeared. Everyone else is right about the teeth.....be very careful of your choices. My kids never had a paci either.

My oldest was really hard to get off the bottle. I also had another child that was a year younger than him and he wanted what his brother had. My son was the same way, he needed that sucking action to fall asleep. And to be honest I wasn’t worried about it because I had another little one and I worked so it was hard at night. And he would just take his brothers bottle then, so I couldn’t win. My son was 2 ½ before I got him off the bottle and they say by 12 months they should be off of it. I had both kids stop at once. My son would drink out of a sippy cup, but wouldn’t drink milk out of it. I bought a special night time sippy cup (it really wasn’t special it just looked different from the rest) and we would give him that at night. Well…that wasn’t going over well. I also gave him a blanket and thought that he needed some kind of security and that went ok, but he still cried for that bottle. The best thing I found was I had them watch me pack up the bottles and I threw them out. I told them “No more bottles” I had to open the cupboard and show them that they were gone. At night time, well that was a challenge. It was hard, but it took 4 long nights of hours of crying. I had to have my husband help out, because it broke my heart to have them cry. But sad to say they had to cry it out. They each had a security blanket and we encouraged that and things got better by the 4th day. They didn’t ask for a bottle anymore. The longer they are on the bottle the more their teeth can be messed up. They develop buckteeth and their teeth can decay. I know it hard, but you can get through it. I wish you the best of luck and I hope all goes well.

When I took my son off the bottle I give him a sippie cup. The first couple of days I would talk the bottle from him once or twice then I would a couple more times a day every few days till he was off. It was hard he cryed alot but I would praise him every time he did drink from the sippie cup. I would sing Russell is a big boy, Russell is a big boy.

S.