bottle v beaker

[Saila]

hello

i'm moving my 1 year old son over to beakers from bottles but he's struggling to get his milk from a beaker and as a result is drinking much less (as in half) of what he was drinking before

i don't want to have him on bottles for much longer (cos of speech development problems) so i was wondering if anyone had any beaker style recommendations for a hungry, fast drinker? He drinks about 8 ounces in 2-3 mins normally.

thanks

[Lochie]

Hi Saila, I am having the exact same problems. My son is 15m and someone told me to just do it cold turkey but I have tried and by the time we get to 3pm he has hardly drunk anything all day so I give in with the bottle. He will drink water from a sippy cup but refuses milk. I have spent about 20 quid in the last two months at Sainsburys trying different cups for him. What I would say is:

- Stick to one type of sippy cup that you put the milk in so he knows that the milk is in THAT one, don't confuse him with lots of types in an effort to find which one he likes. We have found that our son generally likes the Tommy Tipee.

- Do it gradually. A few weeks ago we had got to the point of reducing him from 2/3 bottles of milk a day from the baby bottle to just one (before bed), and he was kind of taking sips of milk during the day from a sippy cup

- Keep all baby bottles out of site when you are not using them. My son gets in a rage when he sees one and cannot have it, even if it belongs to another baby!

All recent attempts have gone out the window as we are on holiday and he has been ill so we have had to go back to baby bottles for now. I had to see the nurse yesterday to get a prescription for him and I asked how much fluid a child of his age should have and she said 'I would imagine up to 1 litre but its not really my remit' (great thanks nurse!). I cannot believe he needs a litre, it seems like so much - so if you find the answer to how much fluid a baby of that age should have let me know cos it would really help put my mind at rest as I wean him off his beloved bottles!!!

Good luck

[Fuschia]

I think at a year they need a pint, but can also count in yoghurt, cheese etc

one bottle/large cup at night would do i would think, plus milk on cereal, otherwise can drink water...

[sb]

.

[Fuschia]

We have thermos cups

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Thermos-Beaker-Asstd-Orange-Blackcurrant/dp/B0001MQ7ZY/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&qid=1293790514&sr=8-13

[trinity]

What about just a normal cup. My lo could use one from about 9 months and would drink much more than from a beaker.

[melbourne groover]

I found the Nuk ones great, they have a silicone to and so it was an easy transition but are free flow. We just eventually moved on to normal hard top beakers with no drama at all. I think Lloyds sell them.

They take a couple of times to learn to drink slightly differently so the tops don't get sucked in (they have to loosen their mouths off at intervals) but both of mine have mastered no problem pretty quickly.

[Saila]

Really helpful. I will try out the options and I'm sure something will work. Thanks very much

[Fuschia]

Avent cups with the white top and the inner seal removed are a good start too...

[nylonmeals]

Can I ask a stupid question - in Europe there is none of this obsession with getting babies off bottles at 1 year. I mentioned it to a bunch of French and Italian mums and they"d never been told to do this with their kids. What's the medical benefit for doing it? (asking as have an almost 10 month old so starting to think about this all now!)

Thanks!

[Fuschia]

I think it's too do wtih speech/oral development/tooth decay, but I do feel that 1y is very young and I don't know many families who manage to lose the night time bottle at that age! I'd also see this as a transition, ie start with the cup for water/at meals and gradually move to where you can junk the bottle totally

[Saila]

ridiculously small sample size, but seeing it first hand really hit home for me.

my sister has 4 kids and she didn't bother to move her second onto beakers i.e. she just used bottles until she was 2 yrs old. Then with the last two kids she moved them onto beakeres. There's no way of being sure, but her second child has a really bad lisp now, whereas all the other 3 are fine.

we're going to gradually move my son over the next 4 months but his milk intake is priority so we'll use bottles to boost and but trying to introduce beakers during the daytime..

[Belle]

From memory, we did as Fuschia suggests and had introduced the beaker for water anyway, and I think in the month or so before he turned 1 (not that I was wedded to the official advice, it just kind of happened that way) we used to do one milk beaker a day. By the time he was 13 or so months I think we'd just transitioned over to 3 (or however many he was on by then) milk beakers a day. I did notice he drank less from a beaker than from a bottle, but then even with bottles by that stage he wasn't always draining so I figured he wasn't a massive milk fiend, and i knew he was getting plenty calcium elsewhere. He's only had two milk feeds a day since he was 1 and a bit I think, and sometimes he'll drain the beaker, other times barely touch it - I think it's good to have the same attitude we all try to with food, that if they want it they will take it, and kind of be led by them a bit. My son used dummies till he was about 15/16 months so I anticipated far more of a struggle giving up the bottle, and was pleasantly suprised.

We mainly use bog standard Tommee Tippee beakers, but the (poss TT also?) ones which have a straw that flips up seem to get him to drink more, whether it's milk/water/juice, so we use one of those too.

[marscapone]

I was unaware of any problems about continuing a bottle after one. My first had his bottle til about 2 and a half I think (although maybe he dropped daytime milk about 2) and had absolutely no speech problems - in fact he started speaking very early and still hasn't stopped!

My second will drink water out of a beaker but won't have milk from beaker or bottle. I guess I don't really have any advice, just to say that they are all different and you need to do what feels right for your little one

[sanity girl]

My daughter will be 4 in march and still has her milk from a bottle! (must be because she's half italian LOL ;-) ) I have tried to convert her to beakers but she won't have any of it. She has no speech problems, in fact quite the opposite, she was a very early talker

[Devonlass15]

Hi Saila,

I really recommend the Tesco's 'From bottle to cup'. It is shaped the same as a bottle so it is still very familiar to them and is a good transition. I started my little boy on it and he has used it straight away after struggling with a few other brands.

It's really cheap and seems the best I've tried so far and it doesn't spill every where either which is great as he flings it all over the place! The only prob is you can't microwave it for more than a min but that's fine if you're no longer sterilising.

Elly

[Saila]

That sounds perfect. Thanks very much