Cutting the Bottle Cold Turkey!

Well it's been a long time since anyone posted on here.  I was beginning to think I'd just give up on it.  But now that I am having another baby I really do want to remember all the important tips and tricks I've learned over the last 18 months with my daughter, and I still want everyone else's tips and tricks too.


So, today we're going to be talking about going from THIS:

To THIS:

And at the suggestion of my doctor, we're doing it COLD TURKEY.

The bottle thing is going a lot better than I had thought it would, although my daughter isn't really taking naps and I think maybe it's because of the lack of a comforting bottle before the nap. Who knows?  She just saw me writing this post and noticed the picture of the bottle and is now throwing a tantrum because she wants a bottle.  NOT her sippy.  BUT, alas, it truly is going better than I thought it would and this is what we're doing:

I spoke with the doctor and she said I needed to do it cold turkey. I already tried the one-by-one type of thing and it just wasn't working.  My daughter is 18 months old and I've heard you need to wean them from the bottle by 12 months, by 18 months and rarely I've heard you need to do it by 2 years.  Most people say 18 months.  When I spoke with the doctor she especially pressed the issue because I'll be having a baby in 3.5 months and my daughter needs to be well off the bottle so that she doesn't even desire it when she sees the baby with it.  She'll know bottles are for babies.  SO, here we go, cold turkey.

First, you must remove all the bottles from the house (or at least hide them). My daughter knew where the bottles were kept and would get them out or look for them so we had to completely do away with them.  (They're now in a box in the basement until the baby is ready for them.)

My daughter called both bottles and sippy cups "bah-boe."  So the next step was teaching her the word, "sippy."  Whenever she now asks for a "bah-boe" I (in a very happy and excited voice say) "SIPPY?!" Sometimes she cries and says, "bah-boe" but usually she giggles and says "sippy!" Then when I hand it to her I get really excited an say, "Sippy!"  My husband does this too and he says he thinks that our excitement makes a big difference in her desire for a sippy and not a bottle.  It really is working.

The last step, and probably the most important one is this to ONLY put milk in her sippy cup.  The doctor said to NEVER put anything else in the cup, not even water.  This is not permanent, but it does mean that until your child is fully adjusted to the sippy, milk is the only thing she should be getting in the cup and since the sippy is the only thing she's drinking out of, milk will be the only thing she is drinking.  That way she's forced to learn to drink milk from the sippy.  Before this, my daughter would happily drink water or juice from the sippy but it was milk she wanted in her bottle.  That is why doing ONLY MILK in the sippy for the transition is essential.  Once your child is no longer asking for bottles and is happy with the sippy cup and drinking it well, then you shouldn't have to worry so much what is in the cup.

Anyway, it seems to be working. It is day 4. It's fun when she says, "SIPPY!" and gets really excited.

GOOD LUCK if you're ready to try! Just do it! :)

PS--And by the way, after reading the below post about cloth diapering and after much contemplation, my daughter is now a cloth diaper baby too!  Thanks Darci for your words of advice and encouragement for those of us out there who just needed some convincing.