Weaning off the bottle involves a lot of trial and error. It may be hard at first but just know as long as you stick with a plan, you will be able to accomplish it. I never thought the moment would come where I would get a break from washing bottles…but luckily it did!
The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests saying bye-bye to the bottle before your baby is 18 months old. For us, we stopped it at 18 months exactly but started to wean him off around 12 months old. Here’s how it worked for us…
The weaning process was gradual. At 12 months old we went from having three bottles a day down to two. We limited him to just morning and night-time bottles mainly for soothing purposes. Then once he was approximately 16 months, we stopped the nighttime bottle and only did the morning. This helped Daniel learn to self soothe himself to sleep and stop relying on the bottle.
At our 18-month checkup, our Pediatrician recommended we stop the bottle all together. There are many reason why the bottle is not good for them after a certain age. One of the major reasons being tooth decay. I had my mind-set on stopping immediately but when it came time to it, it was a lot harder than I thought. Daniel happened to be fighting a cold at the same time I was trying to stop his bottle feeding. Due to his cold, he wasn’t eating much. Unfortunately, I had to resort back to the bottle for him to at least get some nutrition from the milk. It was also the only thing that comforted him while being sick. Luckily, once his cold passed and he was back to eating normal, we just STOPPED the bottle.
I remember the look on his face the morning I handed him a blue sippy cup instead of his bottle. He was literally saying “Ma, what the heck is this?! And where is my bottle?!” He started crying and wasn’t having it at first, until he realized that was his only option. I made the mistake of not only switching from bottle to sippy cup but also from warm milk to cold milk. To be honest, I was being lazy and didn’t want to warm the milk anymore figuring this was my opportunity to change it. Well, that wasn’t a good idea because it made him hate it even more. Once I warmed up the milk he was totally fine with drinking it from a sippy cup.
The bottles are now LONG gone and I am so grateful for it. He is drinking on his own from both sippy cups and even real cups (with only minor spills here and there)! We tried several sippy cups but the one we love the most is this one. A lot of the sippy cups out there have more parts and pieces than bottles which I found super frustrating to have to wash. I wanted something very basic with few parts to have to clean.*
Quick tips…
- Decrease the bottles one at a time and replace it with something in its place (ie. Story time, snack time, a teddy bear, etc.).
- Introduce sippy cups early on even if it’s just for play. Ever since Daniel was 6 months old, we would randomly let him drink from sippy cups and even real cups with a straw. I think this helped familiarize himself with other ways of drinking.
- Speak to your child about the plan. As we transitioned Daniel from the bottle to the sippy cup, we called it “Milk” rather than “Baba”. This helps change their mindset and change old habits.
Hope this article helps you have a smooth transition!
*Please note the above content including my Pediatricians recommendations are based solely on my experience. Please consult your Pediatrician should you have questions about weaning that’s specific to your child.
