Transitioning to milk and sippy cup

My DD is 11 months and our ped said we can start transitioning her to milk at any time. She also said we should try to get her off the bottle around her 1st birthday. Looking for recommendations on how to best make this transition from formula in a bottle to milk in a sippy ? She already drinks water from her sippy cup all the time and loves it. TIA!

Transitioning to milk and sippy cup

I never did sippy cups with DS, we started water with straw cups. Anyway, this is what I did....

DS was taking three 8oz bottles a day. I started by doing 1oz milk and 7oz formula for a few days, then 2/6, 3/5, 4/4, 5/3, etc. I also started giving him his mid day bottle in the straw cup. He took to it no problem and drank it. After a week or so I started doing the same with the morning bottle in the straw cup. About this time I also changed bedtime routine a bit because he would get pajamas on, then have his bottle and I would put him to bed. I wanted to move the bottle away from bed time so I started giving it to him before he got changed. After a week or so with the new routine he was almost on all 8 oz of milk so I just started giving the last bottle in a straw cup and that was that!

I definitely feel extremely lucky that DS got rid of the bottle so quickly and easily. It definitely isn't a BAD thing if your DD is 15 or 18 months and still drinking a bottle. Don't stress yourself. Also, if your DD doesn't drink as much milk ad she is formula don't worry. As long as she is eating well and getting her calcium from other sources such as cheese, yogurt, etc then she will be fine!!

Good luck!!

Re: Transitioning to milk and sippy cup

Thank you so much for such a thorough response :) this is so helpful and very much appreciated!

Re: Transitioning to milk and sippy cup

I just wrote a whole thing & my computer shut down

Luckily it was pretty similar to the other poster

I did the same thing by transitioning to milk one oz at a time.
Once she was used to that I tried giving her the mid day milk in a sippy cup. She wouldn't drink it at all for a week or so but I still offered it.
She drank water out of it but not milk so one day I made her watch me pour her bottle of milk into the sippy cup & she drank it I was shocked!
It was a couple weeks before her first birthday.
The next month I cut out her bedtime bottle, I changed around the routine a little in hopes that she wouldn't notice that we skipped that part & thankfully she was ok with it.
Now she's 1 & a half & I still give her a morning bottle, that's our cuddle time when she wakes up so I don't want to give it up yet
I guess I will soon, pretty sure I'll be more upset then she will.
Also I started her with a straw sippy but after a few weeks I changed it every so often so she would drink from all diferent types of sippies & toddler cups.

Message edited 1/13/2013 11:58:28 PM.

Re: Transitioning to milk and sippy cup

Posted by Beck

I just wrote a whole thing & my computer shut down

Luckily it was pretty similar to the other poster

I did the same thing by transitioning to milk one oz at a time.
Once she was used to that I tried giving her the mid day milk in a sippy cup. She wouldn't drink it at all for a week or so but I still offered it.
She drank water out of it but not milk so one day I made her watch me pour her bottle of milk into the sippy cup & she drank it I was shocked!
It was a couple weeks before her first birthday.
The next month I cut out her bedtime bottle, I changed around the routine a little in hopes that she wouldn't notice that we skipped that part & thankfully she was ok with it.
Now she's 1 & a half & I still give her a morning bottle, that's our cuddle time when she wakes up so I don't want to give it up yet
I guess I will soon, pretty sure I'll be more upset then she will.
Also I started her with a straw sippy but after a few weeks I changed it every so often so she would drink from all diferent types of sippies & toddler cups.

Re: Transitioning to milk and sippy cup

I did it pretty quick I think. First day I did 1 oz water the rest milk then increased each day and within a few days the bottle was 100% milk. I got lucky with the transition from bottle to straw cup because I just
Went cold turkey at 12 or 13 months.

Re: Transitioning to milk and sippy cup

We bought the Nuk training cup, the nipple is softer than most sippys. We gave it to DS and he took it no problem and he is a very particular boy so I thought for sure he'd give us trouble

Re: Transitioning to milk and sippy cup

Around 11 months I did the transition. First I did the milk. I did an ounce of milk in her bottle for three days and then upped by another ounce for three days until her bottles were all milk.

The sippy cup transition was a little more difficult, but not too bad. Once she was on all milk I started giving her the milk in sippy cups cold turkey. She struggled at first because she was used to laying back to drink her bottles of milk and didn't understand why the straw cups weren't working that way. I bought the sippy cups that have a silicone spout and she did great with them for like a week, but then wanted her straw cups only. No issues after that. It just takes them a couple of days to figure it all out.