Going to whole milk when you're not nursing

[Deleted]

I prefer to do things in small steps - and our pedi didn't really have a preference. I started giving him a mix of formula and milk in a bottle, replacing one bottle a day. AFter a couple of days I gave him straight milk in the bottle. I slowly phased in milk, replacing formula bottles with milk (to use up the remaining formula I had). Once I saw he was good with milk, I then swapped bottles for cups.

Even though he drank from a sippy his morning cup was still cuddled up with me or DH :-)

[Velar Fricative]

OMG she's almost 1, how did that happen???

DD never dropped formula intake since the day we went to EFF at 8.5 months - she took 30 oz per day the entire time up until just before her first birthday when we started giving her WCM. She was really into her formula and bottles too so we took it one step at a time. She was fine with WCM once we started gradually replacing bottles with it but she was still very attached to the bottle and wouldn't take WCM (or formula) from a cup. So we went with it and just gave her WCM in bottles (we never mixed formula with WCM), but I didn't give her 30 oz of WCM since that just seemed like too much to me (I could be wrong though), so I think she was getting around 20-24 oz of WCM each day until we eased that down to a cup of WCM with breakfast, lunch and dinner only. She finally kicked bottles just this past week (she is 14 months today).

All that to say, we did everything pretty gradually.

[hocus2]

I poured milk in a bottle or cup and and both kids were fine with it. I did one transition at a time. For my DD she was taking a bottle so I put milk in a bottle for DS he was already using a cup so I put milk in a cup. With my daughter who had a strong attachment to bottles we dropped them slowly. She kept her bedtime bottle until maybe 2.5 or so.

Unless you have low weight concerns I would offer regular cow's milk in all bottles (even over night).

[anna7602]

Just wanted to say that I feel like no bottles after 12 mos is an internet thing. Most people I know IRL kept using bottles after that age. In our case, DD dropped bottles on her own at 15 months. I replaced with liquid yogurt in the containers they came in, with a straw, for a while since WCM didn't agree with her and she didn't like the taste of goat's milk. Now, she still doesn't drink milk and gets her calcium from cheese and yogurt.

[purplecow0206]

I'm nursing, but we started the transition to WCM/sippy cups with the cups at DC. I'm now working on weaning off the pump (only 16 more days to pump!!!) and we'll be mixing WCM in with her milk slowly starting next week. (1 week with 1 oz in each bottle, next week half/half in each bottle, two weeks at home, then the week of her birthday, 1 oz of BM in each bottle, the rest WCM)

I planned on starting it now because the pedi said there was no reason not to, and I'll be home with her for close to 2 weeks at the end of the month, so I wanted to see how she did with the WCM before her first birthday so I didn't have to lug the pump into the office after my time off.

[Deleted]

B was still taking 20+ ounces of formula even after he started eating a lot of solids. Amazingly he likes whole milk even more and the transition from formula to milk was easy. Ditto Anna that you don't need to drop bottles at the same time if you don't want to. My pedi was shocked we were on 100% sippies at our one year appointment.

[MoonPie]

These are great sippies to transition from the bottle.

www.amazon.com/Disney-Winnie-NUHActive-Silicone-Months/dp/B005A3OGR0/ref=sr_1_8?s=baby-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1417447273&sr=1-8&keywords=nuk+sippy+cups

We transitioned the Nuk sippies at around 10 months because he drank from them just as well as from the bottle and they were so much easier to clean than Dr. Browns. We did a combo of formula and whole milk after 1 just because I had the extra formula. My DS loves any form of milk or formula so we didn't have a hard time transitioning. He still gets one of these sippies of whole milk at night and in the morning. He just turned 15 months.

[oswin]

We transitioned straight to WCM from a sippy and DD did fine. I was prepared to mix if necessary, but she didn't seem to care. We did find that she prefers steaw cups, because the flow rate is much faster so she's on those now. I think our one year handout from the pedi mentioned straw cups are preferable for non-water because less sugar gets on their teeth (than bottle or sippy cups), but I don't think it's a big deal at all. She definitely drinks more milk than the recommended amount, probably around 30oz, but she's a big girl so I figure it's ok. Plus I drink a lot of milk, it must run in the family.

[hermione]

I started by mixing milk and formula and slowly upping the ratio to more milk than formula.

I'm not much help on the transition off the bottle. One day I woke up to no clean bottles and C happily took a sippy so we never looked back.

Replace bottle time with something else affectionate and close if you'll miss it. Read books, sing songs, just rock together?

[BaliHai]

We started two weeks ago mixing WCM into her formula - started with an ounce, then two ounces, this week we'll do three until she's totally on milk. We're still giving it to her in a bottle, though - I guess we need to start offering it in a sippy instead. I feel the same way about getting rid of bottles!