Getting rid of the Bottle

**Leeny** · 21-02-2007 11:32

Well, dd's 21 months now, and i want to get her off the bottle. My main reason is that she just rips the teats, so that theres really just an open end, and big slits across it. My description doesnt do it justice, She really rips them to shreds.

Anyhow, I tried her this morning with a cup, and she wouldnt have a bar of it, I tried her in a different sippy cup, wouldnt have a bar of that either.

She still has a few bottles a day. One when she wakes up, one when she goes to sleep, and she has one if i go out if she hasnt eaten, because shes not a big eater at all. Sometimes she'll have half a piece of bread for the day.

In the mornings, she really doesnt stop screaming until she gets a bottle, and she wont eat anything right away when she wakes up.

Any ideas? Is it somethere where i just have to go cold turkey? It really makes for a miserable house hold, she doesnt stop screaming until she gets the damn bottle

**jess_live_die** · 21-02-2007 11:36

my 1st daughter loved her bottles the way i got her off was i got her to pick a cup out she likes she ened icking one that looks like a bottle but is a sippy cup maybe you could see if you could get one of them sorry i dnt remeber the name.
my daughter at 1st didnt like them but i only gave her the bottle at night and when she got so thristy she drank from it coz i didnt offer anything else sometimes u gotta be strong to do it that was my down fall but she ened doing great for you and best wishes.

**Mum2Bug** · 21-02-2007 11:59

Hey hun

I started a thread last week somewhere(Bottle feeding issues section i think, too lazy to look for it

) about the exact same thing.

Hope you have more luck than i did with Bug

**mum2bubba** · 21-02-2007 12:04

I stopped giving Hayley bottles just before her 1st birthday (cold turkey) and just made sure no-one mentioned the b word.

**Leeny** · 21-02-2007 12:09

Thanx guys, and thanx buggy! I'll have a look

**zoemacaroni** · 21-02-2007 12:22

hey there

my now 3.5 year old LOVED her bottle, and she drank out of it til she was about 2 she wouldnt drink out of anything else at all no matter how hard i tried so one day i just decided that was it and threw them out and told her no more bottles... and gave her a sippy cup with a straw, took her a lil bit to start drinkin out of it as much as she did her bottle, but when they are thirsty they will drink out of anything and she did.... and that was the end of the bottle... totally different story with my now 16mth old who i could never get to drink outta a bottle.. lol.... she now drink out of a cup...

**Ana Gram** · 21-02-2007 12:33

We have finally given up the very last bottle at 3 years old. We started slowly cutting down, and got down to one at night. This week I told her that she is too big for a bottle now and she can have a glass of warm milk at bedtime. She must have been ready for it because there was none of the usual fuss.

**funnyfarm** · 21-02-2007 13:01

Hi Leeny,

My 2.5 year old daughter stopped her bottles two weeks ago today. After visiting a paediatrician about another issue i told her that the doctor said no more bottles as it will give you tummy aches and she has been pretty accepting of this. It's only been the last day or two that she hasn't even asked for them but i never really had any bad tantrums for one and she was very attached to her bottle. She used to have 3-4 a day. It took her about 3-4 days before she would have a decent amount of milk out of her cup.

I have also found that she loves the milk poppers (at the moment you can get wiggles ones). It's a bit of a novelty for her to have a popper but she is getting her milk drink. They are expensive but might be worth a try for the first couple of weeks just the break the bottle habit and then introduce a cup.

After stopping the bottles my dd has become increasingly attached to her dummy and blankies. She has replaced her bottle comfort to her dummy comfort.

Another challenge for mum to break.

Good luck and hope it all goes well.

**SassyMummy** · 22-02-2007 01:44

We quit cold-turkey. I figured she was getting too old for a bottle, and so I just gave her milk in one of her cups with a straw instead. At first she was stroppy and angry, but she quickly learnt that it was that, or nothing.

I did encourage her to drink it by putting a little chocolate flavouring (less than you would for yourself... MUCH less) in it. I let her see me doing that, and then she wanted to drink it. The next night, I didn't have to trick her... she was happy to drink it on her own.

Now she doesn't rely on ANY sort of milk drink before bed, in the morning, etc. She will ask me for it when she wants it, and so I give it to her.

**ETsMum** · 22-02-2007 12:19

My DS was happy to drink water from a sippy cup or cup with a straw, but if I put milk in them he would spit it out like I was poisioning him. In the end I only used a bottle before bed time (I didn't want to upset the great night routine). In the mornings, if he didn't drink the milk from the cup, I would tip some of it on his cereal and he would have to go without.

Once he realised that and was happy with milk in the cups, we switched the night milk feed to the same cups too. I think he was 16 months old by then.