16 Month Old Still on Bottle

My son was two when he gave up milk in the bottle and that was only because we basically took it away. Unfortunately that is sometimes all you can do. My son would not take milk in a sippy cup. I would just start gradually reducing the amount of milk in the bottle every night. He might fuss at first but hopefully he will make up with it by eating more other times of the day. It is not good for them to have milk right before bed unless you brush their teeth after. I know I let it go on too long with my son but I was so tired and overwhelmed (I was pregnant with my second). I didn't push it. But you will be happy to hear that he was absolutely fine when we took away his bottle snd replaced it with water in a sippy.

You could try one of those Nuby cups or the Munchkin ones that look like them but even that did not work for my son. Eventually he started to drink milk again in a regular cup. Some kids are just attached to the idea of milk only being in a bottle. it is hard--I know. Hang in there!!

Hi T.,

Try using a cup with a soft straw instead of the bottle. Munchkin makes one that isn't insulated and bulky, but very easy for a 16mo to hold. They sell them at Meijer's...I've never seen these kind anywhere else (no BabiesRUs or Target anyway). My daughter wouldn't use a sippy cup at all at 12mos, so we did these instead and that's all she uses (she's 18mo).

Hi T.,
My youngest turned 21 months yesterday & she was on the bottle at 16 months too! She took it at nap time & bedtime (& eventually only at bedtime). The peditrician suggested we stop ~ which we didn't. She was like your son, taking a sippy & eating but needed the bottle at night (we never put it in the crib w/ her). She got a cold & it was hard for her to take so we stopped & she didn't want it any more after that. I know it feels terrible taking it away from such a little one. In my opinion, you should do what's right for your family. It's not like your son is gonna go to Kindergarten with a bottle, he'll grow out of it. He's getting nutrients from what's in it anyhow. Good luck!
H.
P.S. I feel bad that there were a couple of terribly mean responses in there. You are NOT a bad mom by trying to do what's best for your son. The couple of people that responded so harshly are just plain rude!

Cold turkey is the only way to go. It might be bad for the first few days, but you will be glad you did it! It may seem cruel, but in the long run you will be doing your family a favor!

I'm not one to hurry up the no bottle issue. I don't think you are a bad mom because your little one still has a bottle at 16 mo! I have never seen a Kindergarten child carrying his/her bottle to school in their backpack or anywhere else. Sometimes I think that we as Americans in our hurry-up lifestyles rush our children right out of childhood so quickly and sometimes they are not ready to grow up that much yet.

If YOU want your son to give up his bottle, then you will need to make it less delicious tasting. Try giving him just a plain milk/formula bottle (whatever you use normally) and gradually weaken it with water. Of course, you don't want your growing boy to starve or wake up hungry in the middle of the night, but he can be fed at supper time, then just a milk bottle at night. He has gotten into a habit that you helped him establish and you can simply reverse the habit. No, it won't be easy; he will probably cry for the same yummy bottle that he has become used to, but you don't have to cave in to him.

Like I said, I see no need for you to rush this last bottle to having him weaned. In my opinion, when he is ready, it will be quite easy. Boys mature more slowly than girls also, remember. Trends toward when a baby should be weaned change from generation to generation. When my boys were babies, a friend of mine who was married to a dentist nursed her babies until they were 3 y.o. or more. Most of us moms at that time thought it was a little long to nurse a baby, but it was her choice and it was not wrong for her and her family. What I'm trying to say is not to let the pressures of others push you in a direction that you don't think is best for your baby. YOU are his mom, not your friends and not even well-meaning realitives. You know in your heart what your boy needs better than anyone else. Listen to your gut.

Good luck and may God bless you as you raise your little boy.

Carol B

PS... I just re-read your cry for help. It sounds like your boy is like my first baby - he has an unbeleiveable appitite! When our boy was less than a year, I'd feed him off my plate at our church's fellowship meal after church until I realized that he ate 80% of what was on my plate and we were both still hungry. You may need to feed him more at each meal time. Some boys can eat and eat and eat and they seem to never hit the full button! Do you feed him at meal time until he is full and just stops eating? If no, you might want to try that. Our boy was never "overweight", but always at the top end or above on the height and weight charts as he was growing up. He just grew quickly - not fat, but just a tall well-proportioned little boy. Just to give you an example, he would take 3-4 sandwiches, a piece of fruit or two, and maybe some cookies to school with him every day for lunch when he was in the third grade and he always ate it all. He was not fat then and is not fat now - in fact he is very lean today and he's almost 27. Don't be afraid to give him more cereal and more food - unless, of course, he is getting to heavy for his height. If he is at an appropriate weight for his height, don't sweat it and give him the amount of food he wants. He might sleep better and longer if he is really full at his meal times.

Good luck!

Hi T.,
Both of my children had acid reflux and their GI doctor put them on special formula along with thickening up their formula with rice cereal. So, we too HAD to put cereal in our kids bottle (for health reasons) they were both on medicine up until age 1 too.
My daughter was the easiest going from the bottle to a sippy...we used the nuby sippy cups from Wal-Mart.
My son however, didn't want anything but the bottle. It was harder on me I think than him. So, I had to just go cold turkey with him. Sure, he cried for the bottle and at night I had to hold him and rock him to sleep for a few nights until he learned how to sooth himself another way before bedtime. It took about three days of that and then he was fine. I went out and got all kinds of sippy cups with him with some of his favorite character's on them (Diego, Cars, etc...) now, he has no problem drinking from the sippy cup or a straw cup.
I know how hard it sounds to do it cold turkey (I didn't know how I would do it) but if I can do it, anyone can! :)
Will your son eat oatmeal from a spoon before bed? We had to add a little brown sugar to my son's for him to finally eat it from a spoon.
Good luck and hang in there. :)

I just threw our bottles away. If they aren't there you definitely can't give in and give it to them. Of course we had to listen to some crying and carrying on but I think that it is more about getting the parents used to it and not the baby.
good luck
~J.

People are often judgemental on a lot of things and bottle feeding is one of them, I dont think that you are a bad mom, however, I think you should just take the bottle away. It is just for comfort at this point. It will be a pain when you take it away but it will only get harder the longer you wait!
Good Luck!!!
Jenn.......

You should never have put food in his bottle and definitely not in a sippy cup. You're going to regret it in the long run, not only because you're obviously seeing that he wont give the bottle up but because it can cause many many problems in the future.

Is a couple hours more of sleep worth your son's health and development? Cereal in the bottle, even "just at bed" is nothing but laziness. That's what spoons and bowls are for, darlin!

Have you tried using NUK sippy cups? We used them for my daughter when she was weaning from a bottle and the transition went rather smoothly. The "spout" on the cup is softer like a bottle nipple and not as hard as regular sippy cups.

T. -- I had the same problem with my son. He wasn't getting oatmeal in his bottle, but it took forever for us to wean him off that last bedtime bottle. Sometimes, he'd wake up in the night and the bottle was the only thing to calm him down. We had a week without the bottle, then all the sudden the problem cropped up again when he got a cold. Then, one Friday, I just told him that we were only doing his big boy cup from now on. That night, we had a friend over, so he was distracted from thinking about the bottle. He went to bed with no issue. A few times he would have a tantrum about it before bed, but I'd give him his sippy cup and special snack. Then, I'd just work to distract him. Maybe start a new, special bedtime ritual. Position it as a reward for being a big enough boy to only use his sippy cup. You may try this and it he won't seem to having it at first, but just keep at it. It was hard for us to have our son get upset, but we knew it wasn't because he was hungry. He'd want the bottle even after he'd eaten a full dinner and a snack. It's the comfort of the bottle he wanted. I've also heard of people going through a process where they pretend to mail a bottle or pacifer away to another baby who needs it. You explain to the child why you are doing it and go through everything step by step. Pretend to put it your mailbox, etc. The bottom line is that you just have to put your foot down, as hard as it may be. Good luck!

You just need to go cold turkey. I did this with my daughter's daytime bottles once I knew she was able to use a straw cup for water and juice. She was pissed about it everytime I gave her formula for a couple days but within a week she was fine and 3 weeks later she is drinking her milk fabulous. I did the same thing with the nighttime bottle, I just got rid of it. She now gets one bottle w/ dinner and nothing before bed.

My son wasn't as old as yours is when we weaned him, but he was very stubborn. We tried to cut down to just a bedtime bottle - and he would hold out all day for that bottle and not drink from a cup! I decided to just be done with it, and no more bottle. After 3 days of not drinking much (but I did make sure he wasn't dehydrated - ie adequate urine output), he just started taking the cup without problem. This is probably going to be the best way - toddlers are stubborn!!! Good luck!

When my dgtr was 15 mos old, she wouldn't sleep without her bottle. So, when she woke up in the night, she had to have another one. She was chubby so I only put water in it at night. So, she wet the bed every night-her diapers wouldn't hold it all. I asked her doctor about it and he said she was addicted to it and to stop it cold turkey; he said to put her in bed without it and go somewhere where I couldn't hear her. I did what he said; locked myself in the bathroom and took a hot bath, kept running the water to block out her crying. It took 2 hours the first night, 1 hour the second and 1/2 hr the third, but after that she went to bed without a bottle and no crying.

If you really want him off the bottle be consistant and dont turn back. Just get rid of them. You might have to deal with a week of "hell" but it will stop. You have to be ready though because if you turn back it will be harder the next time. Good Luck!

My question is how does he get it out of the bottle! lol...seems like that would awfully thick to come through a nipple. I think going cold turkey is the best way to do it. Just throw all the bottles away so you're not tempted. Offer him a snack before bedtime. He's old enough to understand what's going on, if you tell him. He'll ask for the bottle, just tell him no. He will probably scream and throw a fit (that's why you throw the bottles away..so you don't give in!) It will probably take at least a few nights for him to realize that you're not going to give it to him. On the other hand, he could totally forget about it. Good luck! It's never easy listening to your little one cry and scream. Don't give in!

Before my son was a year I started putting diluted juice in a sippy cup than as he was closer to a year we did milk. On his one year bday I let him have the bottle all day, than I threw them away. I did it so I wouldn't be tempted to give them to him. Cold Turkey is the only way to go. He may be upset for awhile but he don't die of thirst and hunger. He will be ok.

Dear Mom,
You need to start feeding him from a spoon ,not a bottle.I had five boys and they never got that stuff together in a bottle.You be strong and stick to your guns, it won't happen overnight but you need to start now. I'm a great-G. 17 times so he will make it ,just love him.

you still have him on the bottle at that age???do you know that being on the bottle too long causes bottle mouth which is bad for any baby.this is poor Y. teeth and other problems.i think you need to get that child on solid food.soon.i am a mother and number 3 in a very large family.please drs dont know everything and i am telling you feed him food.K.

With both my girls, we just started giving them sippy cups during the day, and they'd still want the bottle at nap time or bedtime, and then just started offering "water or good stuff?" (Water was in 8 oz. bottles, and we have straws to put in them to make it easier to drink from; Good stuff = bottle/milk). Soon enough, our oldest started asking for water, and never turned back. Our 2 year old still wants that one bottle at night, and the rest of the time it's sippy cups - and that's just not a battle we're wanting to fight because we know soon enough, she'll be okay with a sippy cup.

It's a little bit of a security thing too. Keep offering sippy cups, particularly in the morning, and keep in mind to "fight the fights that need fighting" - to me, a bottle at night, and one in the morning wasn't something I was willing to fight over at 16-24 months.

Good luck!

lol...so it's more like a smoothie? I read the first sentence and thought you were going to say he was, like, 2 months old or something crazy like that. Does he like straws? Maybe you could start with cups with straws and then back out how much other stuff you put in so it's just milk eventually and then work on no milk?
Your other option is to just go cold turkey. He'll be pissed for a couple nights, but he'll get over it.
At least this is a good lesson for moms who think it's a good idea to feed anything but milk or formula from a bottle:)
Good Luck!!

Hi T.,
This may sound harsh but the easiest way to take away the bottle is just cold turkey. I've had 3 kids and they day they turned 1 we took the bottle away. They were a little fussy and irritable for about three days but after that they never looked back. Good luck! L.

You need to bite the bullet and take it away. It will only take a few days for him to get used to not having it, and you make loose some sleep, but it'll be worth it. At 16 months he's not going to understand reasoning very well. Just get rid of the bottles so you arent tempted to give in and go for it. He'll be just fine. Remember to sooth him when he is upset, but he'll be over it in a couple days.

My son, now 2 yrs old, was on a bottle for the first 18 months of his life. We weened him down to one in the a.m. and one before bed (Milk Only, no food or rice in it at all). And one day, my fiance gave him a sippy cup in the a.m. and he just quit doing a ba-ba completely. You may try cold turkey, it worked for us.

Keep perspective. He will not need this at 16 years. Don't worry and do what works.