21/01/2023
Such valuable and comprehensive information on transitioning away from a bottle 👌
🍼 When to transition away from the bottle 🍼
Nothing irks me more than seeing a pre-schooler with a baby bottle in hand. There are a few adverse medical effects of prolonged bottle drinking.
🍼When should a child be weaned from the bottle?🍼
The preferred age is 1 year, and certainly, before 18 months. You will have a more difficult time taking away the bottle after 1 year, as the bottle becomes a comfort and security association. Parents often use it for soothing the little one before naps and bedtime. Parents might resist the transition because it is an emotional decision for them as their baby is growing up. They may also want to prevent the meltdown that may occur from taking away their comfort.
It would be best if you tried introducing a transition or sippy cup at 6-9 months of age. Start with water, as it is the safest option if they might choke on a small amount of water.
Let them master the new cup before taking away the bottle. By 12 months, a child’s hands can handle an open cup.
This does not mean you stop giving milk. Milk can be provided in another cup.
🍼What are the harmful effects of prolonged bottle use?🍼
🦷If your little one spends the whole day (and worst, the night) with a bottle in their mouth, they are prone to develop tooth decay. You might not see it immediately, but your child screaming in the middle of the night with a cavity is not fun. See my post on child oral health at https://www.facebook.com/100050595844490/posts/716418213388034/?mibextid=cr9u03
🦷Constant bottle sucking may cause malalignment of the milk teeth and cause an overbite.
🦷This can disrupt the position of the permanent teeth. Braces are expensive!
🦷Tea and juices can discolour the teeth if it pools in the mouth.
🦷Lying down while drinking milk, juice, or tea from a bottle can cause the fluid to pool at the back of the mouth. The fluid may travel through the Eustachian tube (the tube that connects the throat to the middle ear) and cause ear infections.
🦷Excessive milk drinking may lead to nutrient deficiencies. Children getting too much milk will also fill them up, and they may become fussy eaters. Check my post on milk after 1 year at https://www.facebook.com/1442008255941830/posts/1471057353036920/?d=n
🦷Research shows that kids still using a bottle at age 2 are more likely to be overweight by age 6.
🦷Prolonged bottle use by toddlers, especially those who walk with the bottle hanging from their mouths, can lead to a lisp in their speech due to their tongue’s constant forward position.
🦷Having a bottle in the mouth frequently will also hamper speech development, as they don’t have time to practice saying words. The same goes for dummies.
🦷Holding a bottle the whole time will prevent your little one from using their hands to play and explore.
🦷Toddlers tend to use bottles for comfort and security. This does not teach them the skills of learning how to manage their feelings in a way that’s not linked to eating or drinking. By weaning from the bottle, your toddler learns new ways to deal with big feelings and emotions.
🦷Toddlers are programmed to explore and push their boundaries. Still, they need consistent and predictable limits to help them feel secure. Allowing your toddler to do just what they want when they want, won’t do them any favours.
🍼Will it be difficult to wean from the bottle?🍼
It depends on your little one’s personality and your persistence. They might resist greatly. Some parents find it more challenging than sleep training. I would not attempt weaning from the bottle if the baby is sick, away from home, or suddenly changed routine. It will just make it harder for you and the little one.
🍼How to do it?🍼
Like all things in life, there are different ways of doing it. The most important thing is to stick to your guns and see them through.
There are two methods:
🦃 Cold-turkey 🦃
Here you take away the bottle suddenly. However, I would still recommend that you make a fuss and prepare the child about them becoming a “big girl/boy.” You might think your child doesn’t understand, but they know more than you think.
With this method, you take away the bottle and replace it with a transition cup, sippy cup, or open cup straight away. They might resist and protest profusely, but they soon understand that there is no other way of getting their milk or water. This might take as long as a month or 2. Persistence is critical on your part because if you give in, you’ll have to start from scratch again.
🐢 Slow transition 🐢
Here you slowly transition from the bottle by trying to replace one bottle with milk in another cup.
Always start with the afternoon/morning bottle first and the evening one last. You then gradually decrease the number of bottles. This may backfire on you, as the child may want only to drink when getting the bottle.
Another way is only to offer water in the bottle and the milk in the sippy cup, then gradually reduce the water bottles.
You can try to dilute the milk with water gradually as time goes on until there is only water left in the bottle. Always offer milk in a cup as well.
You can gradually reduce the milk volume in the bottle and offer the rest in a cup.
🍼Which cups are there?🍼
🍶Sippy cup🍶
This is a cup with a lid and a spout with a few holes for the child to drink the fluid. This is great for preventing spillage if you find one that is leak-proof. Start with a silicone spout if possible. Transitioning from a silicone teat to a silicone spout is more acceptable for some babies. Don’t linger too long on a silicone spout cup, as this will defeat the purpose. Transition to a harder spout as soon as possible. The negative thing about a sippy cup is that the child has to do no work to get the fluid out, and there is no sensory feedback. The child’s oral motor development does not benefit from a sippy cup.
Oral motor development is essential in speech, chewing, swallowing, and eating. If your child uses the sippy cup only occasionally, this will not be a problem.
Prevent the bottle-obsession from transferring to a sippy cup-obsession, by transitioning to a straw- or open cup as soon as possible. I love the Chicco Baby South Africa transition cups.
🥤360 cup 🥤
These cups have a 360° edge that allows drinking from any side of the cup. These cups require quite a bit of oral coordination to be able to suck water from the edge. The cup automatically seals when your child stops sucking and is virtually spill-proof if you find the correct brand. I love the WOW cup; I’ve been using mine for three years now, and no spills. Many moms are raving about the Tommee Tippee 360 cups, but I haven’t tried them yet.
🧃Straw cup🧃
When drinking from a bottle with a teat, your toddler’s tongue is in the front of their mouth. Straw drinking forces the tongue to elevate in the back of the mouth in a more neutral position for talking and eating. Drinking with a straw involves complex muscle coordination and concentration. As adults, we drink using a straw without once thinking about the complexity thereof. Straw drinking also reduces liquid pooling, which reduces tooth decay. Although metal straws are better for the environment, try to find plastic straws that are recyclable or biodegradable initially. These are softer on toddlers’ gums and teeth if they bite on the straw.
🥛Open cup🥛
Your child does not need to transition to a sippy cup before transitioning to an open cup. Dieticians, Speech therapists, and Occupational therapists prefer that a child transitions to an open cup as soon as possible. Having your child drink from an open cup is the ultimate goal. Teaching your toddler to hold an open cup to drink from, promotes good hand-eye-mouth coordination. They also learn to master the use of their oral and facial muscles.
🍼How to teach your little one to use other cups🍼
🍯Firstly, remember that there will be many spills in the process, and most of the cups’ contents may end up on the floor. Make peace with it. Try to teach them the skills after having a meal; otherwise, you will have soggy, drenched food.
🍯Children love to imitate; show them how to drink from the new cup.
🍯Always cheer and give positive feedback when your baby attempts a sip and gets it right.
🍯Try different cups if your little one resists a particular type of cup. Also, persistence is vital; the more you expose them to the cup, the more they will practice. Some kids prefer a particular type due to their sensory personality. Others may be too complicated to figure out at first.
🍯Leave the cups around the house, so they can have easy access when they move around. They will practice more. Always fill these with water and not juice or milk.
🍯Show them how to tip a cup to get more out. This is best to practice in the bath. Please give them a few cups to fill with water and tip to empty them. This teaches a child that an upright container won’t spill, but the water comes out as soon as it is tipped. And if your child tries to drink the bathwater, they won’t die.
🍯Play a game where you have a bucket full of water on one side and an empty one a little further away. Give them an empty cup to fill in the full bucket and carry it without spilling it into the empty bucket to pour in there. This teaches them to keep the cup upright and assists in strengthening the hand muscles.
🍯Water down some toddler fruit juice in a box with a straw. You can squeeze the box a bit while the toddler has the straw in their mouth. They then will learn that juice will come when they suck. Keep at it; it might take a while for them to master the skill.
🍯It takes a whole lot of oral coordination to suck from a straw. Try a bigger straw at first, as it might be difficult for your child to close their mouth around a small straw.
🍼Some tips🍼
🧉Keep any bottle out of sight during your weaning process to minimize the child’s temptation and for yourself.
🧉If your child is just not mastering a sippy cup, take out the valve in the lid. This causes the fluid to flow freely out of the spout. When they master drinking from the spout, replace the valve.
🧉Use a thickened liquid in an open cup to teach cup drinking. Thickened liquids will have a slower flow and give the child time to respond to the liquid approaching the mouth. Try a smooth puree from a pouch and then thin it with some water. Gradually thin it more as your child masters the cup.
🧉If you take away a child’s comfort, you need to replace that comfort and security with a lot of love, cuddles, extra playtime, and more bedtime stories.
🧉Get brightly coloured cups to entice your child to want to try them out.
🧉Water is always best for your baby, but it’s also dull and tasteless. It may make it challenging to entice a baby with water. For an introduction to the new cup, fill it with very diluted toddler juice and rub a little of the sweet juice on the spout for them to taste. Once they get the hang of the spout, switch back to the water ASAP.
🧉Make sure the cup is not too big for their little hands. They will struggle to handle the cup and might spill and lose confidence.
🧉Some people say you should cut off the bottle teat’s tip, and the child would not want to take the bottle then. I would not recommend this, as a damaged teat can easily fray and be bitten more, posing a choking risk.
🧉Taking away the last bottle before bedtime will be the hardest. Many parents might feel they are already sleeping terribly, and they don’t want to worsen it even more. If you see it through, your little one might even learn self-soothing skills without a bottle and might even sleep better at night. It’s worth a try.
🧉Your child may resist drinking milk from anything other than the bottle, but might happily drink water from another cup. Cold turkey, unfortunately, is the only way here. Your child may go on a milk strike and not have milk for a week or two, but soon enough, they will give in and drink from a cup. A week or two of no milk won’t be the end of the world; instead, supplement the calcium with another dairy like yogurt or cheese. Broccoli is also a great source of calcium.
🧉Some parents are scared of the epic meltdown or tantrum that might occur. The difference is, you are ready and prepared for this one. Give a lot of love, and don’t give in. You are not denying them milk, fluids, or nutrition; you are not a bad parent.
🧉Always inspect your cups as they can grow mould in hidden spots.
🍼What about night feeds?🍼
Check my previous post on this here: https://www.facebook.com/1442008255941830/posts/1455464194596236/?d=n
No matter how you choose to take away the bottle, the most important thing to be successful is to be consistent and follow through. Like many things in parenting, this may be the most challenging part, especially when the child is giving you a hard time. Children learn quickly, and after you give in once, they’ll do everything to get you to do it again. Just stick with it, and you will teach your child that following through on something and being independent is a valuable life skill.
Thank you to Ané van Dyk, Speech-, Language and Audiology IV, University of Stellenbosch, for assisting me with this post.
Pic by Jaye Haych on Unsplash.
