Bottlefeeding question?

Question

Is it really true that you're supposed to stop bottlefeeding at 6 months and ue a cup instead?
I breastfeed my baby but I give him formula at the evening feed, so at 6months I will have to feed him in a cup?
I don't understand the reason for doing this, b/f babies are allowed the comfort of a breast for 2 years+, but bottlefed babies must have their comforting bottle taken at 6months? Why?

Please note I am not asking fir tips onhow to get them to drink from a cup, my question is why must the bottle be taken away at 6 months? This is current UK DOH advice.

Also my baby goes down awake after his formula feed and does not need the bottle to go to sleep

Answer 1

Theres no grounds nor reason for switching. They think it might be easier to ween them, and help their laws and teeth to form more properly.

However, you breast feed and only use a bottle for odd times, it doesnt matter.

My son is 8 months and uses a sippy when he's not breast feeding, although he does better with a drop-in style bottle for water.

Donbt stress it.

Answer 2

Generally you start to introduce a cup around 6 months, for both breastfed and bottle fed babies. However that is for water (and juice if you give juice which is not necessary) it is also basically just for learning.

Most doctors will tell you to start weaning from the bottle at 1 year. The reason that breastfeeding continues longer than that is that breastfeeding is actually good for proper jaw development and tooth alignment, but there is some concern about bottles causing tooth and jaw problems.

On the other hand most dentists will tell you that bottles, pacifiers, and thumb sucking are rarely a problem as far as tooth alignment until age 2-3. (What is in the bottle can be a problem, but that's a whole other thing. Don't get me started).

PS Do you have a link for the UK DOH info on taking away the bottle. Please understand I believe you, I just like to see what different parts of the world say about different things. .

I found this:

http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_4117080
CUPS
If you are bottle
feeding, comfort
sucking on a bottle
can become a habit
Introduce a cup at
six months and aim
to have your baby
Using a cup is
better for your
baby’s teeth.

Answer 3

ive not heard this, the current DOH rules seem to be a bit strange and totally at odds with what was the case when my kids were young. my daughters have babies and they havent mentioned this, and they certainly dont follow it. my first grandson is 2 he has one bottle at night, the second one is 1 and hes been drinking from a cup since about 6 months but has breast at night, the third one is 7 months and wont drink from a cup underany circumstances so has bottle several times a day. one thing my daughter was told he should only have 2 feeds a day of milk thats crazy whats she supposedtodo when hes crying ? my kids all had bottle and its done none ofthem any harm do what u feel is right for your baby and u.

Answer 4

In the USA the doctor advice I most commonly hear is to get them off the bottle at a year. I once asked my ped. why that was. Her answer was that sleeping with the bottle would rot my daughter's teeth. We have never allowed our children to sleep with a bottle so that didn't concern me and I said so. I was pregnant with number 4 and she said that I didn't want the children confused as to which bottle belonged to which child. Again no problems as I exclusively breast feed for at least 6 months. My doctor had no other reasons why the bottle needed to be pulled at a year. I let that daughter and the two since then keep their bottles until they were/ will be 2. After about 15 months they only get 2-3 a day anyway.

Answer 5

I have never heard of this before to be honest. My baby is nine months old and still has a bottle in the morning as part of his breakfast and a bedtime bottle too. My health visitor says this is absolutely normal. I would not worry about taking the bottle away from him at all. I use a doidy cup when he has his solid meals just so he gets used to a cup ( he wont use a beaker for some reason) and when we are out but other then that he has his bottle. I always think it is best to let baby guide you. You know your baby best not some one quoting stuf at you

Answer 6

Our ped. told us to try and wean the bottle around 1 year. I did start to give my daughter water out of a sippy cup when she was about 5 months but not every day. Right after her first b-day I started replacing a bottle with cup starting in the afternoon we did this for a few days until I realized she didn't care not to have the bottle so then I just switched to the sippy cups with a soft spout. I can tell you if she had cried and shown unhappiness I would have put it off a few more months

Answer 7

No- no one is forcing you. You don't HAVE to. But babies are able to use it by then, and it is a fun new experience for them if you introduce it when they are alert and well (maybe after lunch/tea time?). Then, after a month or so, you can get rid of the bottle IF YOU CHOOSE. The benefits are that you will not have a baby who is dependent on a dummy or bottle to get off to and to stay asleep. If you go to bed with that in your mouth, when you awake and find it is not there, it alerts you fully and you cry until your mum gets up and puts it back in. It is all to do with good sleep routine. It also prevents sugars from dribbling around those precious new teeth and ruining or misalignment of them. There is so much evidence about dental and sleep problems for you to view on this area......
It is current DOH as they are looking at what is cost efficient and it will save them absolutely loads in HV, GP and dentist time and resources. And pain and teasing for a receptiion child with no teeth. As you are reading DOH guidelines, you are probably feeding your child nutritious grub and cleaning their teeth and are unlikely to end up wiht a massive problem with this.....But, people always want a definative answer based on research, and this is it. It is really for those who put fruit juice, squash, tea, hot choc, coffee and coke in their bottles and walk around Asda at 11 at night. Yeh- you will get loads of mums who say well, my 2,5,17 year old is still on the bottle have perfectly straight white teeth and no sleep problems. That is great. There are also loads of mum who smoke in front of their babies who's babies don't have asthma and assoc. problems...again, brilliant for the baby...but the research still goes against their arguement.
Don't stress but it is just so you have all the facts about what might happen and you can make an informed choice...
I once met an 87 year smoker and that goes against DOH predictions too.

Answer 8

That is just ridiculous. You can start teaching him to drink from a cup, but I wouldn't expect him to only drink from cups at 6 months. I've always heard 1 year for weaning from bottle to cup. It is important not to let them fall asleep with the bottle in his mouth (unless it is water) because it can cause tooth decay, even if no teeth are showing through just yet. I've also heard that letting a baby use a bottle or pacifier for too long can cause misaligned teeth and more likely to need braces - although I think genetics play a big role in whether or not their teeth will be crooked.

Answer 9

Using a bottle causes the liquid to "pool" around a childs teeth causing potential decay problems. The same is not true of a cup as the liquid goes past the teeth. I followed guidelines and had my 6 month old take his drinks from a cup from around 6 mths apart from his bedtime bottle which he continued until around 10 months. If your baby doesnt need a bedtime bottle then great! introduce him to a cup as soon as poss in the knowledge that you are not depriving him of any needed comfort.

Answer 10

Not true.

Or, in any case, our bottle-fed baby kept his bottle full-time until about 14 months. (We did change to next stage nipples - they allow more liquid to flow through, since a bigger kid is drinking more.)

After that, we switched to sippy cups. We liked the Avent system, since his bottles interchanged with the cups and grew with him right 'til now. (We still travel with the Avent sport bottles.) He can drink from a regular cup, but only if he is seated at the table.

If he's downing water on the playground or in his stroller, I'd never think of handing him a cup - anymore than I'd drink from an open cup while biking!