Ok, so the time has come to say good bye to the bottles. My trio still have 3 a day (7, 3, 7) and take 5-7 ounces each time. They know how to use sippies; we use them for water at lunch.

Is going "cold turkey" the best approach? I know once we do it, there is no going back, so I want to be sure that we do it right.

The boys are 16 months (13.5 adjusted) and the ped wants them off by 18 months (15.5 adj), so I figure we'll start now.

I would appreciate any and all thoughts as to how to make this an easy of a transition as possible.

Thanks in advance for your time,
Julie

BBB born on 8-6-10 @ 30 weeks
Matthew, Baby A, 3 pounds
Michael, Baby B, 3 pounds 3 ounces
David, Baby C, 3 pounds

A and C are identical.

I think everybody does it a bit differently.
I took mine off at 12 mos (11.25 adjusted).
We first dropped the 3p bottle and just had cookies and milk (this is when they woke up from nap.
A week later we dropped the am bottle and moved breakfast to right after they woke up.
A week later, we dropped the last bottle and gave them milk and crackers or someother snack just before brushing teeth and bed.
Good Luck


Judie and Victor
lucky parents to
Frankie 3/95
Maggie 7/96
Rose 7/96
Elizabeth 7/96

Thank you for your thoughts.
When you gave milk for the snacks, was it cold and in a sippy?

BBB born on 8-6-10 @ 30 weeks
Matthew, Baby A, 3 pounds
Michael, Baby B, 3 pounds 3 ounces
David, Baby C, 3 pounds

A and C are identical.

Yes, it was right from the fridge and in a sippy.
But then, we never warmed bottles. I guess if you did, you'll have to start with warm milk and slowly warm it up over the weeks.


Judie and Victor
lucky parents to
Frankie 3/95
Maggie 7/96
Rose 7/96
Elizabeth 7/96

At 16 months I would go cold turkey. They know how to drink out of sippies. Just make the break. They are likely to drink less, especially at first. However, they only need about 16 ounces of total dairy a day at age 1. If they aren't drinking enough milk, give them other sources of daily. If they aren't drinking enough overall, give them foods with a high water content for a few days until they get with the program and start drinking more.

Lori

http://yesidohavemyhandsfull.blogspot.com/

Thank you for your thoughts. I am nervous about them taking in less, but I am pretty certain they get enough dairy, so we will see.

BBB born on 8-6-10 @ 30 weeks
Matthew, Baby A, 3 pounds
Michael, Baby B, 3 pounds 3 ounces
David, Baby C, 3 pounds

A and C are identical.

We took ours away cold turkey, but kept them warm. They did sippies with milk (lying on their backs b/c they never got that they had to tilt them up) in place of bottles at around 12.5 months. We still had to warm them though. We decreased the amount of time they were warmed (in crock pot) by a minute each week. Eventually, they took them cold. They're 15 months tomorrow and drinking cold milk (YAY!) out of straw sippies (these worked better for us) 3x/day. Bottles are long gone. (I do have a post on my blog if you'd like to take a look.)

Renee

DS born 5/15/06 @40+ weeks 7 lbs 12.5 oz
BBB born 9/13/10 @ 31 weeks
3 lbs 4 oz (33 days in NICU)
3 lbs 3 oz (49 days in NICU)
3 lbs 4.3 oz (45 days in NICU)
http://doublethelanglais.blogspot.com

We went cold turkey right around they turned one, too. My girls also drank them like they were drinking their bottles for a few months, lying back on their boppies. -- Gloria

I started by removing one of the middle bottles and substituting a sippy (soft spout Nuby worked best for us). They didn't really get serious about drinking milk from the sippy though until I removed the other mid-day bottle. Once they were down to only the wake-up and bedtime bottle, they were thirsty enough during the day to actually drink out of the sippy. Once they were doing decently with drinking out of the sippys in the middle of the day, we dropped the morning, then finally the bedtime. I guess this worked well enough for us that we didn't have to go cold turkey and I felt a little better about maintaining the fluid intake.

We still had them lay on the floor in boppy pillows to drink milk out of the soft-spout sippys. Seemed to help with the trajectory and keeping things similar.

Good luck!

Mary (41) happily married to Case (45) since 7/2000

Stay-at-home mom to Madelyn Anne, born 10/31/04

and GBG triplets: Laura Catherine (4 lb 8 oz), Andrew William (4 lb 9 oz) and Elise Nicole (4 lb 7 oz) born 3/15/07 at 34w 1d