Bottle to Bliss

Preferably at 12 months a mother should begin the stages of weaning the child from the bottle. And heres how...


How to Wean your child from the bottle

1. Gradual Transition Method.
   
   Introduce the cup at meal times and let it be the only option that they are allowed to use while eating. Have your child take a couple of bites and food and then give them the cup to drink with. You can try gently putting the cup to their lips and tilting until they start to get the idea of how it works.
   
   Let them play with it and get used to the feel of it.
   
   Switch all of their favorite beverages to the sippy cup and only put water in their baby bottles. This way they start to look forward to the cup for their milk and favorite juices and the bottle starts to lose interest for them.
   
   Eventually let them use the cup at snack time as well. Introduce a great new drink they may not have tried before such as chocolate milk so they are focused more on the beverage than the container holding it.
   
   Start eliminating the bottles from the afternoon naps. Give them the cup before they go to sleep and when they wake up.
   
   Start making the sippy cup the only option when going out places. They will quickly realize that it is the cup or nothing. Make sure at this point that the bottle is no longer an option at any other time except bedtime.
   
   Eventually try the “nap” trick at night as well. Give them the cup before they go to bed and as soon as they get up, but no bottle.

2. 
   

   The Cold Turkey Method.
   
   If you would rather just try to eliminate the bottle in one fell swoop you can try the Cold Turkey method.
   
   The best way to go about this is to give your child about a weeks notice ahead of time. You can do a fun calendar countdown to the day they will get their first “Big Boy Cup” or “Big Girl Cup” Each time you give them the bottle remind them that they only have a few more days to the Big Boy Cup day! Make it sound fun and exciting.
   
   Bring them to the store and let them pick out their new sippy cups themselves.
   
   Put it someplace where they can see it everyday and keep reminding them “Only a few more days!”
   
   The day before, have them help you collect all of their bottles and put them in a garbage bag together. (Save one and hide it just in case transition is harder than you anticipate.)
   
   Make a big production of the two of you taking the garbage bag to the garbage can and that is it time to say “Bye-bye” to the “baby” bottles and to say “Hello” to the new “grown-up” cups.

Advice taken from eHow.com
Pic: polanoid.com