getting toddler off the bottle - View Question

getting toddler off the bottle

hi there. I have a 2.5 year old son who just loves his bottle! he usually prefers milk in it so I'm sure he doesn't have a dairy deficiency. The problem is that he usually has 2-3 a day (sometimes 4) and he's really attached to them. I used to give him a bottle before nap and bedtime to make sure his tummy was full, but now he's growing out of naps and his bedtime bottle is an hour before story time. I don't know if he'll one day stop himself or if it's going to be a long drawn out process...does anyone have any tips or stories about this? thanx

See also: bottle, toddlers, nutrition, weaning

Written by Melissa

Posted on 10/19/2010

See all posts by Melissa

Answers:

As soon as my son turned one i switched his bottel with a silicone lid sippy cup, he didn't fuss once, after a while i switched to the hard plastic sippy cup, it's not good for toddlers to have bottels, it can mess up their teeth

posted by Jamie on 02/27/2011

I say just switch cups. Take him to the store and let him pick one. Do not tell him that his bottle has to go away. Just don't take it out of the cabinet. Make a big deal out of the new cup and see if he just forgets about the bottle. If he is asking for the bottle then you have to just put water in it. Tell him that he is a big boy and big boys do not need bottles anymore. You have to be consistant. Do not give in when he cries. Give him a choice. The cup with milk or the bottle with water. I bet he gives it up very fast.

posted by Janet on 03/02/2011

My daughter used to get a bottle at naps and bedtime too. Once she turned 2 I packed up all the bottles and told her we were giving them to the bottle fairy. It took a few nights of her asking for a bottle but within a week she stopped asking.

posted by Sarah on 06/23/2011

My youngest is 21 months and was very very attached to her bottle we gave her a silicon topped sippy cup through out the day, which was okay as long as she got her bottle too. She carried it around empty she loved it so much. So I started only putting her milk/juice/water in a hard topped sippy cup and leaving her bottle empty and eventually she put the bottle down herself. she would carry both around though, occassionally trying to drink from the empty bottle before she let it go. I hope this helps.

posted by Meg on 07/01/2011

Hi! I'm a pediatric dentist.
It doesn't help that I'm a pediatric dentist, but some of the parents have told me that they just kept making the hole on the bottle bigger and biggle and eventually just cut 1/2 the nipple off so they can drink from it like a cup.
Now, from a pediatric dentist point of vew... what ever it takes!!! I've treated way too many kids with "baby bottle tooth decay"

posted by Helen on 09/15/2011

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