what is everyone using to give milk to a 1 yr old

[jennyh]

Hi

My daughter turns 1 on Tuesday and I wanted to do a quick poll to see what type of vessel everyone uses to give milk in. I think that apart from her evening milk she should be onto a cup now but interested in hearing what everyone else does??

Thanks in advance!

[KateW]

DD is 15 months and we're still using a bottle for morning and night time. Have tried a cup (which she drinks water from perfectly well) but she's just not interested.

[minder]

Bottle.

[jollybaby]

Our 17 month old still has a bottle. We had some success at around 12-13 months in getting her to take milk from a beaker but she then got a bug and we went back to the bottle and since then she has refused the cup - swiping it away. Am trying not to stress about it but i think I've missed the window to make the transition and will probably have to wait until she 's a bit older and can be bribed with a fancy cup or similar! She'll drink water quite happily from anything.

[jennyh]

Thanks, mine will drink water from a cup but I havent tried milk. What is the reasoning behind stopping the daytime bottles?

[Vik]

My 16 month old has milk and water from a Doidy cup and has done since starting solids at 6 months.

[oimissus]

bog standard sippy cup, took a while to get her used to it, but she never took a bottle (unfortunately!) so didn't have that issue. I think a lot of little ones still have their milk in a bottle for quite a while, but as long as they're learning to use a cup for water I don't think it's a problem. I don't want to use an open cup for milk yet as it would reek if she spilt it, and she does have a tendency to wave the cup about and try to feed her toys.

[amydown]

Our toddler never took a bottle. When we started introducing cow's milk when he turned one, we used the non-spill "cow pattern" cups you can get from Sainsburys. He still has one cup of milk before bedtime and the cup really is spill proof so he can take it to bed with him if he wants to.

[oimissus]

amydown, I don't know if it would be a problem with your cup but I know from my mum (who is a retired children's dentist) that you shouldn't let you child go to sleep with a bottle of milk as milk can pool in their mouth and cause damage to their teeth from the sugar in the milk.

[amydown]

Hi oimissus,

Thank you for that post - yes, I had heard about it too and we always do take the milk off him before we leave the room. Trying to wean him off advent calender chocolates after Christmas wasn't as easy though. Ehem...

[oimissus]

hahaha, oddly my mum is far more chilled about food than drink, it's always cake-a-go-go at hers, but only water to go with it!

[esme]

my almost 2 yr old still has a bottle morning and night, am starting to think about cup instead as I think his teeth are starting to be pushed forward... he has a cup at the childminder and during the day but seems to prefer bottle for comfort before sleeping and in the mornings when just woken up

[Hesmall1]

Oh gosh, am I glad to see this thread. We are on day 3 of trying to wean our Small one off the bottle and onto a beaker without much success. She'll gladly drink water out of a beaker, but NOT her milk. This morning she took one look at the beaker, pinched the spout, threw it across the kitchen floor and then started crying. After several days of very little milk intake, I've given in. I put a normal teat on the bottle and she proceeded to drink the whole thing. So the advice seems to be "by one year toddlers should be using a beaker instead of a bottle," but I'm not so sure we'll be meeting this milestone any time soon. Any advice? Should I just relax about the whole thing?

[DaisyDoo]

As our first child had a bottle till almost 4!!!!!! Number 2 is going straight to a beaker for milk once mummy is back to work in a month. We do offer milk in beaker & he likes it - for 5 sips! But when I'm at work, hope is he'll take more as not going down bottle route again.

[One Sweet World]

I'm not at all clear on why bottles are bad. Can anyone advise? I get the idea that if children are sucking at them all day long it's bad for their teeth, but my 18-month-old drinks pretty efficiently. Decided today to have a go with soft-spouted cups (like she drinks her water from) but she either complained or was just uninterested.

We had a really hard time when she was first born trying to get her to first drink and then keep down enough milk to gain weight, then found she was totally hooked on boobs when I had to go back to work so had another very difficult time (lots of tears) getting her to accept bottles during the day. So the idea of another struggle to move her onto cups is a bit depressing!

I'm also trying to cut down the amount of milk as I know that's what you're supposed to do, but again I'm not that clear on why. I understand that too much milk for a toddler can be a problem if it discourages them from eating more nutritious foods, but recently she's been eating well, as well as drinking at least 450 ml of milk a day.