LO is 11.5 months old and I am aware that we need to start bottle weaning. But I was EBF with my older son and he weaned himself at 13 months so I'm not really sure how to go about this.., currently he is getting 4 bottles a day. At wake up (5/6am), 10am, 2pm and bedtime (7pm). He is super attached to that night time and his morning feeds so obviously that would we the last to go but he also only seems interested in drinking water from sippy/straw cups. So how do I do this? How do I not end up starving him?
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Anyone?
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How is he with solids? For DS we were on a schedule of bottles at 7am, 11am, 3pm, 7pm. They we added solids in at daycare for "breakfast" at 9 and "lunch" at 12. We did dinner at home around 6.
It got really tough to do dinner and then the 7pm bottle. I felt like we were trying to cram food/formula into him. Our ped ok'd stopping the 7pm bottle. So we switched to just giving a sippy of formula with dinner.
Then at around 11 months we stopped sending the 3pm bottle and sent a solids snack instead. That went fine so a week later we did the same with the 11am bottle.
A week or two after he turned one I finally gave up the 7am bottle. I really didn't want to because it was so easy to have him feed himself while I got ready, versus having to feed him breakfast. Instead of the bottle I gave him a banana and some cheerios.
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DS2 is 10.5 months old. Right now he gets a wake up bottle (6am), breakfast at school (9am), bottle (11am), lunch (12pm), bottle (3pm), dinner at home (5pm) and a bottle (7pm).
He's slowly adding table foods to his diet but is refusing all baby food. Once we get him eating more table food's I'm going to start cutting the day time bottles. School will start giving him milk at meals when he turns 1. For DS1, bedtime bottle was the last to go. We gave him Cherrios and milk (almond due to allergies) in the morning. Once we cut the bedtime bottle, we didC Cherrios and water before bed. He eventually cut that on his own at 2.
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@travellingbee: Are you bottle weaning and transitioning to cows milk, or going to continue with formula/breast milk?
My LO was on a very similar bottle schedule. I cut out the 10 am one first and gave him cow's milk in a straw cup with a snack. We did that for 2 weeks and then dropped the afternoon bottle, also doing a straw cup with snack. Next was the morning, but I was sure to sit him right down to breakfast since he woke up starving.
I asked about milk transition because I didn't want to have another battle later and have him associate formula with straw cups. I dropped the final nighttime bottlet at 14 months and it all went down smoother than I thought possible.
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@Tanjowen: We are going to transition to cows milk. That sounds like a good plan. I guess we will start doing the transition away from that first bottle soon. It seems like it will be easier to do those middle too, especially when he is at day care. I am worried about the morning one because he wakes up screaming for a bottle. And his evening one definitely gets him sleepy and ready for bed. He doesn't fall asleep drinking it but it has been a part of his bedtime routine . Thanks for the suggestions!
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@travellingbee: I did everything 2-3 weeks apart and told myself I wouldn't drop the nighttime bottle until he was ready. And it was bittersweet when he did because it was a nice snuggle time for us both. Good luck!
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I cold turkey cut all day time bottles. I think I kept morning and night bottles (with cow's milk at 1) for like another 2 weeks and then just started putting the milk in a straw bottle.
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@ShootingStar: he's good with solids but he's big and still wanting his bottles too so I worry about cutting off that source of food but I fuss he'll get it.
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@ladybee: @snowjewelz: thank you!
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I would move that bedtime bottle to dinner time. We would give LO her milk in a sippy cup first. If she didn't finish it, I'd give it to her in a bottle. We only did this for the week before she turned 1. When she turned one I put the bottles away cold turkey. She knew how to use a sippy so it wasn't a big deal. We then started giving her just 2 oz of milk in a cup when she woke up and 6 oz cups with meals (3x per day). I think we kept that 2 oz cup for a couple months before she seemed to be okay without it and now she just has a solid snack in the morning before daycare.
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I'd cold turkey the two middle ones. Offer a solid snack, a sippy of water, and a sippy of milk. Then slowly decrease the ounces in the other bottles, and replace the morning one with a cup of milk (and be ready to move breakfast earlier!) and the evening one with a drink of water.
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