Have you ever wondered when it is an appropriate time to take away your baby’s bottle? I’m gonna share with you my top tips for when and how to make this transition. So for the first year of life the main calorie source for a baby is liquid, right? Milk from the breast or from the bottle. That’s really all we’ve got until around the six months when we start exploring with some solids. But essentially, milk is your baby’s main calorie source.

Well, when we hit the first birthday there’s a shift that occurs where now the motivation or the focus should be on solid food consumption. So solids become the main calorie source. And milk, whether it’s breast milk or formula or regular old milk, becomes the beverage. And so just be careful. There is a mindset shift that also needs to occur for parents to start shifting the focus from milk onto food.

When some kids start this transition they have a tendency to fall back into the milk. My first son, he loved his milk. He would drink milk all day long if I let him, but he wouldn’t eat any food, because he didn’t need to, because he was constantly filling his stomach with milk. And so that can happen. Milk is the easiest, fastest way for a child to get calories into their system. It’s familiar. It’s what they’re used to. When you switch to cow’s milk, it tastes fantastic to them. So they have a tendency to ask for that.

Now, if a bottle lingers much past that first birthday, then milk and the bottle can become united in your child’s mind. As milk only comes in a bottle I will not drink milk in anything else. And that’s usually why you see kids drinking from bottles a lot longer than most people would think or hope. Or most parents probably don’t really love the idea that their three year olds still drinking from a bottle but it’s usually hooked to milk that the child just will refuse to drink milk in anything else.

So you wanna start early. Around the first birthday is the time to transition out of the bottle. So start putting milk in maybe a sippy cup. You can start with a really soft topped sippy cup. It’s similar to a bottle, but it’s not exactly the same and that can be a good first step to moving away. Now, there might be a few days where your child is like hang on, no, no, no, no. If it’s not in a bottle, I don’t want it. It’s a called a milk strike and it’s common. And don’t let it sway you, right? Don’t let it push you into falling back. It’s okay if your child doesn’t drink milk for a few days. Just make sure they’re getting liquids in some other form and keep pushing forward. The child will come back to the milk once they see that, well you’re not really, you’re not budging. And then move into a harder top sippy cup. That’s the next step. Or move right to a regular cup.

I know a lot of parents who just feel, you know half a cup of milk at meals and snacks, a straw. Most children love to drink from a straw. It’s very similar to the action that you would use to drink from a bottle. So they take to it just like that. Give them a straw with a cup. And there you go. You’ve got yourself out of the bottle so you can go ahead and throw all of them away.

Thanks for watching today. Sleep well.