Quitting Bottles? Another thread.

[dancingirl21]

I feel like this has been asked recently but have questions that I don't think were answered.

J is 13 months.  We have half-heartedly tried to quit bottles but he is 0% interested in taking milk out of a sippy.  I think we need to go cold turkey.  We still do 4 bottles per day - wakeup, before nap, afternoon, before bed.

1.  Do I give milk in a sippy at the same times as above? 
2.  Any sippy cups that worked better than others?  He currently drinks water like a champ out of pretty much all kinds - with a straw, soft spout, hard spout, etc.
3.  Any tips to make the transition easier?

[smm5623]

We only used straw cups. I got different ones for milk because I think M was having trouble differentiating milk from water (she expected water which caused some resistance). For months she called milk "elmo milk" because we used elmo cups, but it worked! We offer milk in the morning, at night, and with meals. She gets water throughout the day otherwise.

[rex]

we finally quit cold turkey. i posted here and that seemed like the easiest method. L is young (11m) but will be on formula until 15 so i just wanted to be done with something. she's also down to 3 servings, at meal times. i give her the cup with the meal.

we use zolli bot straw cups.

[brooklyn]

We've had a lot of trouble getting off bottles. Jack associates sippy/straw cups with water and only wants water in them. I finally caved and bought thermos foogo insulated straw cups, and he'll dink milk out of that.

[rt2008]

We weaned off bottles kind of slowly. She was drinking about 4-5 bottles per day, so at 11 months, I started replacing 1 bottle with a sippy of milk. It took a couple days for her to catch on with each new sippy, but towards the end, (maybe 3 ish weeks later) it got much easier because she was used to the cups by then. DD LOVES those take 'n toss cups for milk. And we use a straw cup for water. She would drink milk all day long if I let her, but she basically gets 4 cups a day. One right in the morning, one before nap, one in the afternoon sometime, and one before bed. She drinks water with all her meals then.

[gingerjar]

We like straw cups- the lollacups are great

[countthestars]

Dd is still getting her bedtime bottle but we have dropped the rest (finally!) we started with day time and had daycare do it. She gets milk at meals and if she wants before nap. I was still giving a bottle at wake up and bedtime but just recently dropped the wake up one - I offer milk and if she refuses she just drinks water or nothing until we get to daycare. It's about an hour from wake up to daycare breakfast.

[cincodemayo]

This is going to be hard for my kid. He doesn't drink anything, seriously. He's not a bottle fiend, he drinks maaaaaybe 1-2 oz of water out of his straw cups, and spits out milk. I just keep hoping that one day it clicks and he starts to drink out of his cups.

That said, he will eventually drink some WCM out of his bottles so we will be sticking with them for a little while. My goal is 14 months bottle free.

I plan on doing PP's suggestion and having certain cups for milk and certain cups for water, as well so that he knows what to expect.

[shellbear09]

We quit bottles at 13.5 months. She was down to just morning and night right after a year. Giving up the morning one was hardest but really after a couple days of some whining it was fine. I would taper down over a few weeks or more and not cold turkey from 4.

It took my dd awhile to drink milk from a sippy. Even now at 16 months it's not a ton. We offer 3 times a day with meals and water all day. I like the take and toss cups for milk.

[mandapanda18]

We quit bottles altogether right at a year. He already was great at the sippy cup, I just got him a different style for milk (well soy/almond) and he only gets the milk in it. We dropped it one feeding at a time, he gets two sippy cups of milk still daycare and still nurses morning/night. Hoping to drop the nursing soon, but not sure if I would replace that with milk or not. He does not drink his milk with meals, it is in between (and before naps as he has not yet consolidated).