How to take a child off the bottle
Stopping the Bottle (for Parents)
Reviewed by: Madhu Desiraju, MD
Primary Care Pediatrics at Nemours Children's Health
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Many toddlers become attached to their bottles. Besides providing nourishment, bottles also mean comfort and security.
It's important for parents to start weaning babies from bottles around the end of the first year and start getting them comfortable drinking from cups. The longer parents wait to start the transition, the more attached kids become to their bottles and the harder it can be to break the bottle habit. Longer bottle use may lead to cavities or cause a child to drink more milk than they need.
Switching from bottle to cup can be challenging, but these tips can make the change easier for parents and kids.
How Should I Start the Switch?
Most doctors recommend introducing a cup around the time a baby is 6 months old. In the beginning, much of what you serve in a cup will end up on the floor or on your baby. But by 12 months of age, most babies have the coordination and hand skills needed to hold a cup and drink from it.
Age 1 is also when doctors recommend switching from formula to cow's milk. It can be a natural change to offer milk in a cup rather than a bottle.
If you're still breastfeeding, you can continue feeding your baby breast milk, but you may want to offer it in a cup.
Tips to Try
Instead of cutting out bottles all at once, try dropping them from the feeding schedule over time.
For example, if your baby usually drinks 3 bottles each day, begin by stopping the morning bottle. Instead of giving a bottle right away, bring your baby to the table and after the feeding has started, offer milk from a cup. You might encourage your baby by saying something like "You're getting so big now and can use a cup like mommy."
As you try to stop the morning bottle, keep offering the afternoon and evening bottles for about a week. That way, if your child asks for the bottle you can say that one is coming later.
The next week, stop another bottle feeding and provide milk in a cup instead. Try to do this when your baby is sitting at the table in a high chair.
Generally, the last bottle to stop should be the nighttime bottle. That bottle tends to be a part of the bedtime routine and is the one that most provides comfort to babies. Instead of the bottle, try offering a cup of milk with your child's dinner and continue with the rest of your nighttime tasks, like a bath, bedtime story, or teeth brushing.
Other tips to keep in mind:
- Spill-proof cups that have spouts designed just for babies ("sippy cups") can help ease the move from the bottle. Dentists recommend sippy cups with a hard spout or a straw, rather than ones with soft spouts.
- When your child does use the cup, offer plenty of praise. If grandma is around, for example, you might say, "See, Emma is such a big girl she drinks milk in a cup!"
- If you keep getting asked for a bottle, find out what your child really needs or wants and offer that instead.
If your baby is thirsty or hungry, provide nourishment in a cup or on a plate. If it's comfort, offer hugs, and if your little one is bored, sit down and play! - As you wean your baby from the bottle, try mixing the milk in the bottle with water. For the first few days, fill half of it with water and half of it with milk. Then slowly add more water until the entire bottle is water. By that time, it's likely that your child will lose interest and be asking for the yummy milk that comes in a cup!
- Get rid of the bottles or put them out of sight.
If you have problems or concerns about stopping the bottle, talk with your child's doctor.
Reviewed by: Madhu Desiraju, MD
Date reviewed: June 2022
How To Wean Your Toddler Off Of Their Baby Bottle
Big Kid Time
Getting off the bottle is a big kid move, and knowing that may make it easier for your kid.
by Patrick A. Coleman
Updated:
Originally Published:
MoMo Productions/Getty
It’s not surprising that your toddler is so attached to their baby bottle. After all, it makes the hunger go away. And if they’re drinking it at night, not only is the nourishment soothing, but the sucking is too.
But there are health concerns with kids older than 14 months continuing to use a bottle. That’s because this is also a time when they have started eating a more varied diet that includes solid food. So the calories from milk that were a staple of their diet become unneeded extra calories.
One study conducted by the American Academy of Pediatrics entitled the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study showed that many children were still using the bottle after 2-years-old. Those children were far more likely to be obese up to three years later compared to those who’d given up the bottle earlier.
It’s just like how you drop the pounds during sober January.
More than that, sleeping with the bottle can be a serious issue. Not only does it not allow a child to learn how to self-soothe when they wake up at night, but it increases the chance for tooth decay. That’s because milk is full of natural sugars that bacteria thrive on.
How To Drop The Baby Bottle
First off, this isn’t going to be easy. Expect some tears and struggles.
Consider The Cup
Before you do anything, you’ll want to make sure your kid has something else to drink out of. Just doing this might be enough to get your kid to start thinking about moving away from the bottle. Here are some ways to give the cup some added allure:
- Let your kid pick it out.
- Help them understand cups are a big-kid move.
- Give them an opportunity to decorate it.
- Create some kind of cup transition ritual. Songs and dances are highly encouraged.
Once you have the cup in place you’ll need some strategies to make things just a tiny bit better for you as you go through this transition.
Keep The Bottle, Ditch The Milk
One of the more gentle (and frankly pretty sneaky) ways to deal with the issue is to manage the biggest bottle issue: the milk.
In this method, you transition the milk to a more appropriate cup. This milk is made additionally special by adding a little food coloring. Once your kid is cool with the cup, begin watering down the milk in the bottle while decreasing the color of the milk in the cup. It’ll take a while, but once you’re done, the bottle will be filled with water and your cup filled with milk. Like some amazing magic trick that takes a month. And honestly? Who cares if your kid is hitting a bottle of water all day and night?
The Gradual Bottle Fade
Another popular method is to slowly reduce the number of times your kid is getting their bottle during the day. The key to this strategy is to take away the bottle your kid is likely to miss least — which is probably the midday bottle. These bottles are replaced with milk in their special cup.
Additionally, the bottle can be restricted to specific times and places. Just like you’re not allowed to hit the bottle at work. Slowly you’ll take away all the bottles except for the one used at bedtime. That’s because the bedtime bottle is often part of the larger ritual. Now it’s time to start watering down the milk. Eventually, your kid will realize the milk in the cup is better and move away from the bottle. That’s the plan, anyway.
Cold Turkey
You might not think going cold turkey would require a process, but it does. Before removing the bottle from your home, talk with your kid about it before it actually goes down. Pair this with a cup shopping trip and any other big-kid ritual you dream up (short of helping them look for their own apartment).
When the time comes to remove the bottles, make sure your kid understands they are physically no longer there. You can give them a send-off if you think it won’t be too freaky. No Viking funerals.
In the end, the cold turkey method will require you to grit your teeth and dig in your heels.
If you lose your nerve, minimize the ruckus by offering rewards for the bottle-free time. In the end, your bottle-free kid will be better for it. They may not know it (and they’re probably not going to write some intense, clear-eyed memoir), but at least there will be one more milestone down.
This article was originally published on
How to wean a child at 2 years old from a bottle
Many mothers of infants are wondering how to wean them from a bottle. After all, for babies, the sucking reflex is innate and therefore it can be quite difficult for them to give it up for a long time.
Contents
- When should I wean my baby off the bottle?
- Ways to wean
- Some tips and tricks for weaning your baby from the bottle
When should you wean your baby from the bottle?
First of all, it is worth understanding whether the child is ready to give up drinking from a bottle of his favorite mixture, porridge or even water.
After all, this ritual, for a child, means not only a way to saturate or quench thirst, but also gives them some calm and satisfaction of a natural reflex. Especially if the baby is bottle-fed and deprived of the mother's breast. Then he, thus, makes up for breastfeeding by sucking on a bottle of formula. Which replaces his delicious mother's milk.
Do not rely on the advice or personal experience of others and acquaintances. All children are individuals and have different needs.
Some of the babies already at 8-9 months of age easily refuse both the bottle and the nipple, while others are ready to give them up only closer to 2 years.
But still, after this age, it is not worth delaying giving up the bottle, as well as taking it off the breast. At 1.5-2 years old, any child is already quite capable of doing without bottle feeding. Because at this age, as a rule, children are already accustomed to such adult appliances as a spoon and a plate. And many with great pleasure and curiosity get acquainted with the "adult" food and new dishes.
In addition to age, there are several other signs that indicate the readiness of the crumbs:
- the baby already knows how to hold a mug and a spoon in his hand with great interest,
- the baby does not ask for night feedings.
But, regardless of the age of the baby and the signs of growing up, you should not start weaning at the wrong time. Father-in-law, if there is some event related to stress in the child, then it is worthwhile to wait a while with the rejection of the bottle so as not to aggravate the situation. For example, admission to kindergarten, moving, or recent illnesses.
Methods of weaning
Be patient, do not wean the child abruptly and at once. To begin with, it is worth weaning the child from night feedings and from drinking formula or water at night from a bottle. It sometimes takes 3 to 5 days. On the first night, the baby will certainly be nervous, and demand to provide him with legal bottle food. But, it is worth distracting him with something at this moment.
For example, shake your arms and sing a lullaby.
If the child is sufficiently attached to the ritual of night feeding and is naughty, try to walk more in the evening so that he sleeps better at night. Give your baby a relaxing bath before going to bed, and when you go to bed, give him a soft toy that will be nice to hug at night. This will distract him from thinking about food and allow him to sleep soundly throughout the night.
Be sure to maintain tactile contact to help him calm down and feel secure. Thus, in subsequent nights, he will remember less and less about food at a later time. Pediatricians advise to stop such feedings from 1 year.
Tips and tricks to wean your baby off the bottle
- Try to alternate between bottle feeding and drinking from a cup or cup. Let the baby get used to his new dishes. To interest the baby, give preference to bright colors of mugs. And the drinker should be comfortable, with two handles and a non-spillable lid.
- Encourage your baby's interest in mother's dishes. Let's hold the spoon in our hands, even if it's not quite right yet. So the baby will quickly get used to new devices and lose interest in drinking from a bottle.
- Let the baby solemnly present his bottle to one of the younger children of his acquaintances. This gift will serve as a symbol of growing up. Be sure to praise your child for their generosity and offer a small gift as a consolation.
- Pour diluted or lightly salted milk into a bottle and normal milk into a mug or cup. So the child will get used to the fact that milk drunk from a mug is much tastier and will refuse a bottle.
- A 2 year old is old enough to explain that big babies don't drink from a bottle like babies. Children at this age usually like to imitate their parents and older children, so they quickly get used to new devices for drinking and eating.
- Purchase a non-spill mug with a straw inside. Now on sale there are many models of various colors and shapes, with drawings of your favorite cartoon characters or animals.
Surely there is something suitable for your child. Drinking from a straw is similar to drinking from a bottle. So it will be easier for the baby to survive parting with the bottle and he will already feel more adult.
Regardless of the chosen method, the main thing is that the weaning should take place calmly and, if possible, gradually, so as not to disturb the delicate psyche of the child. Each mother chooses an individual method for weaning and saying goodbye to the bottle for her baby. Sooner or later, the child will still wean from drinking through the nipple. But it’s better not to delay the process after the child’s two years of age. Otherwise, this habit passes into the period of growing up of the child, up to 4-5 years. Similarly, long-term bottle-sucking harms the baby:
- Over time, malocclusion is formed due to constant stress on the jaws and teeth.
- Impaired pronunciation of sounds and development of speech. Speech therapists say that after the age of two, it is much more difficult for children who suck a bottle or a finger to learn the correct pronunciation.
- Inadequate sleep and late diaper weaning. As a rule, children who require a bottle at night wake up very often and drink a lot of liquid. Therefore, respectively, more often written. For this reason, parents have to constantly wear diapers for the baby at night.
Thus, at the age of two years, the child is already quite ready to wean from such baby attributes as a nipple and a bottle. At the same time, parents only need to properly prepare and help their daughter or son a little to switch to a new way of drinking and eating from adult dishes.
Watch the video on the topic
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to a pot and does not go (in diapers all day)
and constantly to boobs stick.
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I really don't understand why a bottle should be given to a child under 2 years of age. From six months she gave the baby water from a drinking bowl. I just found a convenient one for him, Tupperovsky. He has been drinking from a cup since the year. But I breastfed for a long time, perhaps because of this, the baby did not have cravings for bottles and nipples.
#10
At night they stopped giving a bottle and that's it. In the evening we gave him a lot to drink. Then they warned: if you ask for a drink at night, we won’t give it! He may not have understood well, or perhaps he understood very well what we meant.
But still he asked. I cried a little, but we did not give. Since it was night and he had not yet slept off his, he fell asleep. After 4-6 nights, he stopped asking and began to sleep through the night without waking up. Since then, he does not wake up at night at all.
And in general, I weaned him off the bottle like this: I bought a glass bottle. Threw out the plastic ones. Then she told him: your bottle is made of glass, it can break like a glass. If you break it, there will be no more bottle. He was already 3.5 years old, so he understood very well what it was about. A month later, the bottle broke (it had to happen). As soon as she fell to the floor, he began to cry and said: how am I going to drink now? I consoled him, said that this happens and that he is already a big boy and can drink from a glass. He certainly "suffered" at first with a glass. But after 2 days I got used to it.
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Anya
I weaned my son like this: When he first day went to the nursery, at 1.
9, he came home in the evening and asks for a bottle, I say, and everything the German teacher came and took away) ) you say the big boy has become already)) and it worked))) he really looked at me with regret, but he never asked for a bottle again, and he didn’t suck on a pacifier at all ... Something like that ...
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Why teach her 9002 at all??? There are no drinkers and mugs?
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Natalia
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2222 Guest
I'm wondering how to wean sissy??? April will be 2 years old.
She doesn’t go to the potty (in diapers all day) And constantly sticks to her boobs.
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He is early to wean from a bottle. Let him drink from it.
But it is necessary to wean drinking at night. We weaned ours at 2 years from the night bottle, and at 3.5 years from the bottle in general.
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I'm wondering how to wean sissy??? April will be 2 years old. She doesn’t go to the potty (in diapers all day) And constantly sticks to her boobs.
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Why teach her at all???? There are no drinkers and mugs?
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