Seeking Advice on When to Stop the Bottle.

Hi B.,
At one years old, I don't think it was nesessary to take away the bottle completely. I have a 16 month old that I still give a bottle to before she goes to sleep. I will however be eliminating that very soon as well. Is your son drinking out of a sippy cup? He could drink his water out of that.
My god he is still a baby!!!! I do think it would be important to get some kind of schedule going. I have always given my daughter a sippy cup of milk when she wakes up at 6:30 am and then breakfast at 8:00am. Then a small snack at 10:00am and lunch at 12:00. Another snack at 3:00 and then dinner at 5:30. In between I would give her sippy cups of 1/2 juice and 1/2 water, and cups of water as well.
You can feed him baby yogurt, tiny cubes of string cheese, Avocado, like other people suggested, you can puree foods. I was lucky and my daughter ended up eating almost anything I put in front of her.
Your son will get used to the schedule and will most likely do well with it.
Good luck!

At 1 yr. old I was giving my son 3 meals a day and he was still breastfeeding. He is now 19 months old and completely weaned. He eats 3 meals a day - as much as he will eat - and 2 snack times a day (around 10 or 11 am and again in the afternoon around 3 or 4). I give him food whenever he's hungry though. Good toddler foods are toast, oatmeal, cereal, ripe fruit without the skin (although my son would not eat whole fruit or veggies for a long time - they had to be pureed or freeze dried), steamed sweet potato, cottage cheese, yogurt, pasta, small pieces of meat (per my pediatrician), things like that. It's tough to figure out what to feed your toddler, I know! My son loves rice and grains, like quinoa. It's something I had never heard of before, but it's very healthy and delicious if you boil it in some kind of broth instead of just water. I also chop up veggies very small, or just corn and peas and add them in.

Hi B.,
Don't have any advice but my doctor told me that same thing. I spoke with my mother who assured me that my brothers and I were all on the bottle till we were three or four and turned out fine. If your son handles the transition okay that's great but don't feel bad that he is still on the bottle. My daughter didn't give up the bottle completely until she was over three and her teeth are perfect. Even her pediatric dentist says so:) Good luck to you and your boy:)

Hi B.

The doc would usually tell you to feed son as much as he would eat. I have found this to be the hardest advice to follow (as mothers would often force feed our kids). I can't tell you what and the amount, but what would make your life a lil easier is if you get a $20 Black and Decker food processor from Amazon. Put whatever you want to feed your son in there for 10 sec and zap- food will be ready for spoon feeding. And how are you supposed to cook those tiny meals daily? i went crazy over the same thing. To save myself some time, I cook a pot of soup, for example, and put small portions in sandwich bags to freeze. Do it like school lunches: cook five things and freeze so you have things to rotate. Then what you do is add something diff to each meal. (I can hear the other mothers say uh-uh to frozen meals but I don't believe that much is lost to freezing and then steaming.) Don't forget to give him what you ALSO eat (the part that he CAN eat from your plate). Save yourself time, mama! ;)

Btw, I bought a book called Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron (Amazon). It's thick as the Bible (so I haven't read it) but supposedly it has a ton of ideas.

Your concern about liquid intake... You might try something similar: In the AM I give my son 6oz whole milk in sippy cup before breakfast. He gets one before daily nap and one before bedtime. Make sure to wipe his teeth because of sugar in milk that accelerates decaying. Good luck.

A.