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We transitioned her right after her first bday. At first she wasn't taking much from the straw cup and for the first few nights we let her have one bottle at dinner. But once we took it away she realized if she wanted the milk, she'd have to drink it from the cup.

With DS1, I quit cold turkey right at one. But he was good at the sippy cup. DS2 is not as good at it so we are going a bit slower. Yesterday he got milk from a sippy during the day and actually dis better than I thought he would.

As long as they can drink well out of a sippy cup, I would transition away from the bottle as soon as you can. It'll get harder as they get older. I don't think it matters either that it's formula or milk. Just as long as they can drink out of it. I also found DS1 was stubborn and didn't drink much for a couple of days. But once he realized the bottles were not coming back, he drank like normal.

Well at that point we switched to whole milk and she was getting around 24 oz give or take.

@twodoghouse: my doctor said something that made sense to me too. She said as long as we offer the bottle, he has no incentive to get better at the sippy (we try both straw and spout) and then it'll eventually become a power struggle. That's why we were trying the slow approach - bottle in the morning and at night and sippy during the day.

Even if they used bottles some of the day they would still be getting a lot of formula.

I'm trying this now. Let's see if it works.

Mine will be 2 in 9 days and they still get bottles of whole milk before nap and bed

My LO had a ton of feeding issues in her first year, and wasn't into eating solids at ALL till after she was one year. On top of that, she was "behind" on her bottle skills, because she wouldn't drink a bottle awake until she was 11 months old. So she was still new to taking a bottle awake.

Because of her history, our doctor told us not to worry about a bottle-to-straw cup transition until her 15 months appointment. By her 15 month appointment, we were down to just a morning and night time bottle and on straw cups during the day and the Ped said we could cut out the other cold turkey.

Unfortunately....we were skeered, lol. My LO just doesn't like hemp milk out of non-bottle cups so she drinks maybe 4 oz during the day. We FINALLY dropped her morning bottle about 3 months ago, but we still have her night time bottle, at 22 months. haha. Totally embarrassing. But her night time sleep sucks, so we are afraid to mess with it.

Our ped was more insistent on 15 months than 1 year, so I think the advice varies heavily! I think you have some time

LO was still on 3 8-oz. bottles/day at 1. Over the next 6 months, we slowly cut one at a time. The last one to be cut was his bedtime bottle, and he cut it himself when he developed a double ear infection and it hurt for him to take the bottle.

Well...my almost-3-yo still has a daily bottle. At first our ped was like, "Noooo cavities!" But we were like, "I don't understand because we still brush his teeth afterwards. We just do bath, bottle, brush teeth, bed." And she was like, "Oh nevermind that's fine." I think the issue is having the sugar from the milk/formula sit there all night, but as long as that's not the case you're all good.

My son LOVED his bottles and he would get his milk in one when he woke up and after daycare until He was 2.5 (oops!!) we didn't do milk before bed per the pediatrician.... he loved bottles, it was his comfort, we took it away by "sending the bottles to the babies who needed them" and he was totally OK with it at that point. The initial reason we stuck with it was because he would only drink milk out of it and I wanted him to get the extra calories. We did switch to cows milk at 1 though, I stopped nursing at 10 months because I dried up and did formula for 2 months.

@hummusgirl: yes, that is my understanding as well. Milk, then brush teeth.