Hi. I have twin girls who will be 1 next week. They have been exclusively on formula since they were about 5 months old. Right now they take 4, 6 oz bottles a day. They do very well with their solids foods. Eat just about anything that I can cut up into small pieces. Have never shown any signs of possible allergies or anything. In anticipation of them turning 1, I'm trying to ween them off the bottle and transition over to whole milk. So far it's not going well. My son is 3 1/2 and he had absolutely no issues with this so I don't know what to do. I little more background - they currently get their bottles when they wake up in the morning, after both of their naps and before bed. They do not associate a bottle with going to sleep and do not need it to settle down. They have barely been drinking their bottles over the last few weeks - just not interested - so I thought this transition would be a breeze but then it seems like last week they've been crying for their bottles and sucking them down to the last drop. Maybe they're going through a growth spurt and I need to wait it out before trying anything? They were very slow to get use to a sippy cup. I give them water with a bit of juice (they were not drinking plain water at all) with every meal. They don't drink much, just play with it mostly. Because of this, my plan to give them milk in a sippy at 'bottle times' just to make sure they get enough but they are not having it. I know they do not like cold things (one is very particular) so I've tried warming the milk but it's still not working. So I know I'm dealing with two transitions here so maybe I need to take care of one at a time? What should I do? Start putting formula in a sippy and ditch the bottles or put milk in a bottle? Are there any 'milk alternatives' out there that I should try that may have a different taste? Maybe they just don't like the taste of milk. What if they don't ever like milk? Am I stuck buying formula forever? Like I said, my son did not have these issues so I'm freaking out a little about this.
I would keep the bottles for now. And start adding milk like 1/4 at first to the formula. Then 1/2, then 3/4 til it's 100% milk in the bottles.
After they're onto the milk OK, you can eliminate the bottles O. at a time, the last O. to go for us was the O. before bedtime.....
This all might take a few months overall.
But that's what worked for us.
Good luck.
I slowly made the transition from formula to milk by slowly adding milk to their formula and I stuck with the bottle until the switch was made. My pediatrician recommended that I don't take away both at the same time. It worked out well. After my daughter took milk out of a bottle for a week or so, I started the transition to the sippy cup.
The only sippy my son could use at one year was the Take and Toss type. Such a pain, since it would sometimes pop open if dropped. All the other brands he just played with and only managed to get tiny amounts of juice/water from though. (Like yours, my son never went for the plain water. In fact, back then, the only juice he went for was white grape. He would refuse apple. Even at 2 1/2 we have juice/water for breakfast and plain water for the rest of the day. He won't get started drinking any other way!)
As for drinking milk, don't freak out if they won't accept it. Just make sure their calcium adds up to 100% through other foods. Yogurt and string cheese are easy. (The low fat yogurts have less calcium, so be sure it's a whole milk yogurt.) My son wouldn't even accept chocolate milk until 2 years, and that was my doc's advice to us. I always offered him some at dinner, and sometimes he'd take a sip if I was drinking milk too. Then one day when he was two, we ordered him some chocolate milk at a restaurant and he polished it off! I had tried chocolate milk at home before, but I guess the restaurant made it special!
The way we do it in child care is like this.
The first week add 2 oz. of whole milk to the bottle, add 6 oz. of water, the formula powder and mix. That way the 8 oz. bottle is 1/4 milk and 3/4 formula. This may take more than a week. If they don't like it try a bit less milk but it should not make a real difference. Once they have successfully accepted the change and you are not seeing stinky poo or any other signs of their bodies not liking it go to half milk and half formula.
This one stage seems to me to be the one that is the longest. The formula/milk mix does taste different and they may not want it. I added a bit of strawberry syrup to the bottle or Hershey's syrup. I don't think it matter much. They will get used to it, it may take a day or it may take 2 weeks. Once they are doing it well and are used to it then go 1/4 formula and 3/4 milk.
That goes shorter than the other stages to me, once they take it a few times with they don't go back to the formula.
This is how I have successfully transitioned hundreds of kiddos.
You can keep trying with the milk if you want, but I hated it as a child and never drank it, and neither of my children liked/like drinking it either. I was as rough a kid as they come, and was constantly banged up, but I've never broken a bone (knock on wood). My kids like it on cereal, in oatmeal and if I make them chocolate milk or hot chocolate (but those are treats). There are many other ways to get calcium -cheese, yogurt, dark leafy greens, calcium fortified orange juice and apple juice. The only time my boys will drink milk -and usually not the whole thing -is when I give them room temperature flavored milk boxes, but through foods and fortified juices, we've never had any issues with calcium. If they're eating well and one, they don't need formula anymore.
I was a bit more "my way or the high way" with this one. It drives me nuts to see toddlers with bottles.]
I went cold turkey - 100% to milk, and 100% in sippys, overnight.
I had a day or two of protest. Bottom line, when they want a drink enough, they'll drink it. They're just throwing a little "tantrum" over not liking the change.
If you really think they're adverse to milk, you could try other kinds, like soy or almond milk. But I wouldn't budge an inch on stopping the formula or transition to sippys.
What I did with my oldest 2 kids is to make the milk transition gradual. Rather than starting to give them a whole bottle or sippy of milk, I start out with mostly formula, and add milk to it. (Since you are doing 6 oz bottles, I'd do 4 oz formula, 2 oz milk). Do this for a few days, and then decrease the formula to 2 oz & increase milk to 4 oz--do that for a few more days, and then give all 6 oz as milk. I'd focus on the milk transition before the transition from bottle to cup--since getting off the formula will save you a TON of money!
After a few weeks of them being on just milk, I'd start making the switch to the sippy.
Around 10mos, my son would only drink from straw cups, he never wanted to miss a thing by tipping his head back. I would try that, and mixing the too. Also, try other milks. My son's fave was unsweetened coconut milk, but also liked the almond.
