Is it ok that my 15 month old still drinks her milk from a bottle?

Question

I try giving it to her in sippy cups but she won't take it. She only likes her water/juice in sippy cups and her milk in a bottle.

Answer 1

If you keep offering the sippy cup with milk and do not back down and give her the bottle she will adjust to milk being in the cup.

She is not trying to be obstinate, it is just what she is familiar with. We all try to avoid the unfamiliar.

I may take several days but just stick with it, she will adjust.

Answer 2

I work at daycare and I would say yes your child is too old for the bottle. Down the road, when she turns 17, 18, 19, 20 and etc. months old she's going to be used to getting her bottle with the milk in it. I would throw away all bottles and tell her no and no matter how much she screams and hollers cause you know she's going to, DO NOT GIVE HER A BOTTLE. Keep though a sippy cup close by, where she can't knock it off by her little fit she's throwing and then once she calms down she should take the sippy cup. You may have to hide in the next room and watch her from there so she won't see you and then when she takes the cup say, "Yeah, you did it, Good Girl, I'm So Proud of You, and etc".

Answer 3

i don't know that there's anything wrong, per se, with her having the bottle for milk, so long as she doesn't take it to bed (baby bottle caries, it'll make her teeth bad) but if she does use sippy cups, and if you refuse to give her the bottle, she'll get the message soon enough and just take her milk from the sippy, too. if she throws a huge fit over it, let her carry on, she'll stop. it won't hurt her if she goes a couple of days without milk, and if she ABSOLUTELY refuses, after a day or two, to drink milk from the sippy, don't give her any juice. water is essential to being healthy (i tell my daughter it helps keep her insides clean) but juice is not necessary for a child to be healthy, and is not nearly as good as fresh friut & veggies, anyway. i know she likes her juice a lot, but these little "battles" that happen when they're this young, if mom and dad give in too easy, it can set a tone for the more important things down the road. when my daughter "got the hang of" drinking from the sippys, i packed up all those dratted bottles, and that was that. whether you wash those boogers by hand or do 'em in the dishwasher, don't you have enough to do without having to worry about getting all those little parts and nipples clean? i can't wait til i can do away with the sippys now, all those stupid little valves that want to fall down the drain, or end up in the bottom of my dishwasher!i guess, if you don't mind her having a bottle, don't worry about it, though. it's not the method of delivery that counts, it's that she gets her milk.

Answer 4

My son will be 3 in May and drinks his milk from the bottle. You see he wakes up at 3 & 4am & wants milk. I give him the bottle. I'm not going to get uptight about it either nor get stressed. He's drinking juice & water from sippy cups but not his milk. We've tried giving him milk from sippy cup but refuses it. I believe he will grow out of the bottle slowly. My nephew drank his milk from a bottle up until the age of 6. I think that is a bit too old but his teeth are just fine & he is 11 now. I think 15 months is too young to wean her off the bottle. I would suggest around 2 yr old if you're worried about her teeth.

I don't know if this helped you or confused you but just wanted to share my feelings about it.

Answer 5

my daughter did the same thing. i finally got her off the bottle around 16 months. what i did was introduce her to sippy cups with a straw and juice boxes. it took a little while for her to get the hang of it but now she really like drinking like a big girl (she is 21 months now). also, my daughter has never drank from a conventional sippy cup - she prefers straws!

Answer 6

A breastfed child's need to suckle would still be recognized *at least* up to age 2, and beyond that in many other cultures besides ours. Why not a bottle-fed child's? I would try to look at it from an anthropological perspective-- the human child is designed to suckle its milk from birth through about age 3-4, give or take. That's how long I would expect a bottle-fed child's need to suckle to remain.

Yes, you could find a way to do away with the bottles. Many parents have in the past, and will undoubtedly do so in the future. But in the long term plan, how important is it to you? It sounds to me like you are just feeling pressured to wean her off because "everyone" else thinks 15 months is too old for bottles.

Answer 7

You are going to get many many opinions on this issue and some nasty comments. I believe that the bottle does not hurt babies teeth at all. My oldest son was off the bottle at 8 months old but that's because he chose to not want his bottle any more. My youngest is 23 months old and she is still on the bottle. I give her a sippy during the day time as much as possible. My doctor told me to take her off the bottle when she turns 2 which is next month. My daughter was born with a heart murmur and she had heart surgery at 9 months old. The hear murmur caused her to not gain weight at 23 months old she weighs 20 lbs. So while she is on the bottle she is getting more calories which is helping her gain weight. I think 2 yrs old is a good age to take them off the bottle if they dont want it sooner.

Answer 8

i would just stop giving her bottles all together and encourage everyone else to do the same, if she is drinking other things out of a sippy cup than i think she is ready but she will keep demanding bottles as long as you keep giving them to her

Answer 9

walmart has a great transition cup, it is sort of like a bottle and a sippy both, it has a soft silicone top that feels like a nipple, but is shaped more like a sippy spout....... and they are only about $1.50 apiece. 18 months is about when our little man switched over to sippies full time.

Answer 10

You are the parent, step up and throw away the bottle. Eventually she will get over it. If she already uses sippy cups its not a big deal to get rid of it.