Ween the Bottle?

Hi T.,
My son was pretty easy to get off the bottle, but a lot of my friends had trouble. I know I started by eliminating the middle of the day bottle, then the morning one and finally the night time one. My son did well with that. Those of my friends who had more difficulty, tried different sippy cups. The Nubi seemed to work well for 2 of my friends. The sports bottle one is shaped most like a bottle. One of my friends her son would only drink from a straw. He never used a regular sippy cup. So try some different kinds of cups. Good luck.
K.

My 2 year old did the same thing, and still isn't drinking milk. He doesn't like it. The pediatrician says he doesn't need it. Calcium can come from foods like broccoli, or from other dairy products like cheese and yogurt. We don't give juice either, except as a treat. (We give him a stonyfield banana drinkable yogurt daily - its organic and for some reason he loves it even though he hates milk. We call it banana juice, so he thinks it is a treat.) If your daughter is drinking water she is staying hydrated - and her nutrition can come from the foods she eats. Sounds like you have excellent instincts!

Hi
My daughter started doing the same thing. One bottle at night has enough nutrients to suffice if she does not drink milk. I still continue to give her a sippy of milk at each meal even if she does not drink it and then one bottle at night to give her all the vitamins and that sort of stuff. Hope that helps!

My son is two years old and does not drink milk. It hasn't been a problem for him at all. It was the same situation, he would drink it from a bottle, but not a cup. The week after his 1 year birthday, I stopped the bottles cold! he didn't care at all, because he wasn't using them to fall asleep. We rock him, you can try replacing the bottle with something like that. Once she is use to that, getting rid of the bottle should be no problem. My son will drink chocolate milk and he eats yogurt and cheese, so my pediatrician told me not to worry. Since then, I have run into more and more people who have children that refuse milk. you are not alone and your little girl can be perfectly healthy without it. of course, try whatever you can, but don't stress out! good luck!

Try using a completely different sippy cup than the one you use for water. That is the only thing that worked for us. It took several months to wean completely. We knocked out the afternoon one first, than the night time and then the morning...and gave in many times! Persistence works best!!

Try adding an ounce of milk to her formula and day by day add more milk and less formula. That is a little easier "taste transition" for her tastebuds.

my 18 month old doesn't like to drink milk from a cup really either so I give her drinkable yogurts in a sippy cup. I also been out of drinkable yogurst and instead put yogurt (a flavored one with no chunks of fruit) in a cup and then thinned it with milk. I guess my daughter enjoys the flavor of the yogurts.
My doctor said not to worry about no milk while you try to get rid of the bottle and once the bottle was gone for a few days she did drink some milk from the sippy, but she drinks a lot of the drinkable yogurts (so much I have to limit them)
Good Luck
S. Gallo
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my 2 yr old was the same way. i did it with a sports sipster which has a soft nipple type thing on top only she drinks like its a sippy then after a couple nonths moned her to a softtop sippy. as soon as she started chewing off the tops i moved her to a reg hard top sippy. it worked well for me.also i read alot of responses my kids periatrician was a cheif of staff at a hospital he said that the requirements for milk were for those children in northern states. they get their calcium from fla ground water and their vitamin d from the sun. that children in fla didn't need the milk because they got those requirements naturally.

I, too, have a 13 month old. We got rid of the bottle 3 weeks ago, but we had to go cold turkey. My daughter doesn't get juice either, only water and she would drink the water fine. We tried different sippy cups, nothing worked. So my dr. told me to try to take them away completely, and we did. The first day, she would not drink out of the sippy cup until about 3 or 4 pm. The next day, it was like 12pm before she took a sip. Then it was 9am and now, as soon as she wakes up and gets breakfast, she drinks out of it. What we had to do was throw out the bottles, and what I did, was put her water away and offer only the milk. I kept the milk out where she was so she could grab it if she wanted. And I have recommended these a couple times: Gerber Banana cookies. They crumble in the mouth and made my daughter thirsty, so she would grab the milk that was out! Good luck!
Also, I know dr.'s say not to give the milk in anything but the sippy, but you might want to try to give her the milk in the bottle, that way you can see if she is refusing the milk or if she is refusing the sippy cup. That is what we did.

Hello! I have the same exact problem. My daughter is 12 1/2 months and she only drinks her water out of a sippy cup and she drinks 3 milk bottles a day around the same times. If I put the milk in the sippy cup she takes 2 sips and throws as well. But, she will drink all the milk out of the bottles. I need the same advice!

trying giving her milk in her bottle? maybe once she gets use to the taste of it she'll drink it out of the cup.

Try only giving her water in her bottle, and if she won't drink regular milk in the sippy, try a little Ovaltine.

My daughter just turned a year and we had our 12 month check up this past Monday. I asked him about the milk, etc... He said they should get no more than 24 oz of milk a day, but it's not really necessary to have milk at all. It's for the fat and calcium, and they can get the fat from foods like avocados as well as other dairy products - cheese, whole milk yogurt, etc. He said definitely no more than 24 oz a day, but if none was consumed, that's completely ok. He said to be sure she is getting 32 oz of fluid a day, though... water, etc...

Hi T.,
Sound like we all go through a phase similar to this. My daughter is almost 16 months old. At one year, I tried milk, and she won't drink it. She will drink it from a bottle. She is the same, and doesn't go to bed with it. I have tried EVERYTHING, sippy, cup with no lid, cup with a straw, strawberry milk, choc milk, my cup of milk, pediasure, nothing worked. At her 15 m checkup, the dr said keep giving her the bottle, because she needs milk. She has one in the am and one before bed. She said when she's older, and you can use positive reinforcement, try again. I guess just try all sorts of things and see if any of it works. For me, I just think she doesn't like the taste of it. Good luck

Your situation sounds almost identical to mine when my daughter was that age (She's almost 19 months now). What I did was gave up nap time bottles first. Ease into it by say reading a book while you give her the bottle for about a week. Then stop giving her a bottle, but just read her a story before you lay her down. She might surprise you. Then I put it off for a month b/c i thought it was going to be an ordeal, but I took away her night time bottle. She didn't care one bit, went to bed without crying. There were a couple times in the next couple of weeks that she cried for a few minutes, but never that bad. Also, my DR said that don't worry about the milk thing. Just give her yogurt twice a day and it gives them exactly what they needed from the milk. My daughter was the same way that when she had her bottles, she never wanted milk from a sippy cup. About a couple weeks after we totally got rid of the bottle, she just started drinking milk out of sippy cups. Good luck!