Weaning from formula and bottles

[made4love]

My son is 12.5 months old, and we've finally begun the process of weaning to whole milk and away from bottles. I'm a little overwhelmed.

My plan was to replace bottle feeds with solids and 4 oz of whole milk, but my LO doesn't like milk as much as I expected. I introduced it to him slowly by watering it down, and he seems to only enjoy up to 2 oz at a time.

His schedule:

• 8:30am wake
• 9am 6 oz bottle
• 10:45am solids with some watered down milk
• 11:30-12:45pm nap
• 1:30pm solids w/ 4 oz milk (drinks up to 2)
• 3:45pm 5 oz bottle
• 4:15-5:15pm nap
• 5:30pm 4 oz bottle (planned to drop this next and replace with a snack)
• 7:15pm solids w/ watered down milk
• 8:30pm 7 oz bottle
• 9:15pm asleep in crib

He used to drink water from his ezpz straw cup so well, but now he's figured out he can pull the straw out with his teeth, so that's all he wants to do. Any other straw cup now frustrates him if he can't do that (like the Munchkin weighted straw cup). And he doesn't drink from an open cup well enough yet. Now I'm wondering if I should instead replace his formula with milk over time (he still takes it in bottles) and then drop feeds?? Eliminate bottles first? Thank you in advance for any advice!

 

[pugnodei]

@made4love drop the AM bottle. replace with earlier breakfast with whole milk. give lunch few hours after then nap and after nap give bottle (however much oz you think baby needs) then introduce snack if you would like. then dinner, night time bottle and bed. factor in small nap somewhere if need be but at 1 they can transition to 1 large nap during the day. also no need to water down milk.. they are still getting used to the taste/temperature/cup and when they are thirsty they will drink. sometimes they wont and thats okay. always offer it and try to bring it up to their mouth to get a taste.. its a transition and it takes time. offering formula can confuse them or they are simply too full so just be patient and slowly reduce the bottles. when baby starts to eat more and more solids then you will know they will not be hungry if you skip bottle.

edit: always give whole milk during meals

 

[made4love]

@pugnodei Just so I understand, you think my next step should be to drop his first bottle by giving him breakfast earlier? And then from there, keep dropping bottles and replace with solids and milk?

 

[pugnodei]

@made4love basically yes with maybe a few adjustments here and there! good luck and congrats baby is transitioning to toddler!! what a fun age

 

[made4love]

@pugnodei Okay, thank you! I appreciate the advice

 

[llleopard]

@made4love We transitioned to milk and then off of bottles, that way he was only dealing with one change at a time. We started with doing half milk and half formula for a few days and then got it down to just milk. Once he was consistent with milk, we switched cups. We use the Nuk “rim-like” cups for milk.

I would transition bottles to milk and maybe reduce the amount you give and move breakfast up, so he wants food. We give milk outside of mealtimes, but cap it at around 15-18 ounces per day. It looks like he is getting a lot of liquid calories between formula and milk. You could drop that 345 pm bottle and replace with a snack too. Ours naturally ate more as we dropped bottles. At 15 months, our schedule looks loosely like this:

7 am wake with 5/6 oz milk

8 am breakfast

10 am snack

1030 am nap

11:30 am wake from nap and gets water

12-1 pm lunch

3 pm snack

330 pm nap

430 pm wake from nap and 5/6 oz milk

6 pm dinner

7 pm 5/6 oz milk (he doesn’t usually finish this one, most days it’s only like half finished)

715/730 pm bed.

 

[made4love]

@llleopard Did you offer milk with meals/snacks as well? Or just water?

 

[llleopard]

@made4love Just water has worked well for us.

 

[made4love]

@llleopard Okay, that makes sense! Thank you so much!

 

[samanthagrace]

@made4love Just a “oh, duh” tip for open cup practice that I didn’t realize — practice outside/at the pool (if you’re in the northern hemisphere!). My guy is definitely interested in trying to drink from an open cup, and I kind of regret this didn’t occur to me sooner.