[janinasbiz]

My son just turned 2 and I know its time to start weaning him off the bottle. He prefers to have a bottle than eat food. He has a bottle for nap & bedtime, and would drink milk all day if I let him. I have tried giving him milk in a sippy cup & he won't drink it, throws the cup on the floor and freaks out! He drinks everything else out of a cup, water, juice etc... not milk.
I have read a few sites and some say to wean gradually & others say cold turkey. Any helpful tips would be great... HELP! :eek:

[George_1950]

Welcome to AMHD; if weaning doesn't work, you don't have much alternative, do you?
I would distinguish nap time from bed time. I always heard that bottles with milk were bad for an infant's teeth. Make bed time a process: bath, snack, story, kiss everyone, prayers, lights off (mostly).

[Fr_Chuck]

And you will get both advice here also most likely, but in the end, it is a matter of will power of who gives in first, my advice, cold turkey

[startover22]

Cold turkey worked for both of my kids who used a bottle. We just gathered them all up put them in the garbage and then took the whole bag out to the outside garbage took it to the street for the garbage man to come and get them, and wa la. THEY WERE GONE! (we did this together by the way)
It was perfect and George had a great idea with making a routine, instead of a bottle, he has a new nightly routine!

[Wondergirl]

George and start are right. My older son drank a bottle in bed, had "nursing bottle mouth," and ended up with a mouthul of silver crowns until his permanent teeth finally came in. My sons threw their bottles away themselves and missed them only that evening (but I reminded them who threw the bottles away). Be tough. Cold turkey is the way to go.

[jaynay]

;) My youngest daughter is now 8mths old but at about 4mths she was still waking up at 3 and 4 in the morning for bottles. It really begane to work on me once I started school so one night I didn't give her the bottle and to my surprise she didn't complain and just took her pacifier. From that day on she has not been waking up in the middle of the night. So I would do it cold turkey. With most children out of sight out of mind is the thing. If you don't give him the bottle he will eventually get thristy enough to drink out of the cup. At bet time and nap time instead of giving the bottle you could have him drink from the cup also. Don't go back and fourth because that will only confuse him. The first day or two will be the worst but after that you should be o.k.

[NowWhat]

What happens when he pitches a fit? Do you walk away? Give him a bottle, etc?

Kids learn really fast how to manipulate. If you are giving in when he cries for the bottle - he knows that it is just a matter of time before he gets what he wants. And that is across the board - not just bottles.

If you are trying to wean him off and it is not working, then I would go cold turkey. I really like the idea of throwing them away together.

I saw on "supernanny" where she had a kid collect their pacifiers (I think this would work with bottles too) and put them out for the "pacifier fairy" for the other kids - babies - that needed them. She put them outside in a little bag and in the morning, they checked and the bag was, of course, gone with a thank you note from the fairy. You could make that work with the bottles.
Just a thought...


Good luck.