Hellobee Boards

Are you against straw cups? Neither of my LOs ever took a bottle, but we skipped over sippies and went to straw cups. That's how both of mine would drink cow milk. It took awhile to transition, but it has been successful. DD is 13 months and we introduced cow milk just before she turned 1 in the straw cup. She still doesn't drink a lot in one sitting, but I'm still BF too.

@Skadi: We have been using Nuby Straw cups for milk and Zoli straw cups for water. There is a learning curve to figure out how to suck from a straw. What I did was offer a fruit pouch to DD, then took it away after she sucked on it a few times and got her to take the straw cup immediately after. She continued the sucking action, and figured out how to suck from the straw pretty quickly.

We used a zoli bot straw cup and we let her have formula in a bottle but when we switched to milk at about 12 months (our pediatrician said by 15 months), it only took a couple days. We didn't offer the bottle, we offered milk. And a few times, she got upset and we'd give her the bottle for a few sips, then take it away. And then we just never offered it again and she figured out that milk came in a straw cup and while she did drink less for a bit. It was a very painless transition for us. But we kept offering water/milk in a non-bottle. Formula was just for bottles. And then one day, it was just gone.

We went from bottles to sippys cold turkey right at 11 months. It took a few days for her to realise the bottles weren't coming back, but then it was fine.

We also did bottle to straw cup cold turkey at her 1st birthday. She started getting the grasp of water out of the straw cup at 9/10 months and so was used to it for that. She didn't always finish her milk for the first week or so but after that it was fine.

I'm curious, how do spouted sippy cups interfere with oral development? DS uses those more often than straw cups (and I like that they're more similar to how you'd drink out of an open cup) but he takes a short sip only every few minutes. He doesn't suck on it for 10 minutes straight like he would a bottle.

To wean off of bottles we introduced a sippy at 6 months. At first it was just water, so if he dropped it or if it spilled I didn't care. He wasn't really getting it, so we gave him a juicebox at a party and he totally figured out the straw. For a couple weeks we gave him some watered down juice so that he'd be motivated to drink. But now he loves water and WCM so we didn't cause an issue. Breastmilk is really really sweet, so you're not going to cause a monster over sugary stuff.

At 9 months we dropped his evening bottle and just did a sippy of milk. At 11 months we got serious about dropping bottles and did about 1 a week, starting at the end of the day and moving up. We replaced each bottle with a snack and he was totally fine with it. It took us longest for us to get rid of the morning bottle because for a long time he wanted to eat the minute he woke up, and by giving him a bottle it allowed me more time to get ready.

But now I just put him in the high chair and give him a sippy of milk and some banana and he's fine. I think we stopped the final bottle right before Christmas, so he was about 13 months. And by the end he had just been getting WCM in his bottle, we stopped giving formula right around 12 months when it ran out.

At 15 months we're just starting this process.... Lo takes water from a straw cup very well (skip hop straw cup) and this week we started putting her daycare milk in spill proof insulated munchkin cups i found on clearance at target. So far so good. but she's still getting a bottle in the am, before nap and before bed. I will be talking with the ped about cutting back her milk at our appt on monday.