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A Hard Habit to Break
Part One Bring on the Cup
By April E. Clark
Lynne Stacey, a mother of two boys from New Palestine, Ind., never knew how picky her youngest son would be as she weans him from a bottle to a cup. Now she knows firsthand how color coordinated her toddler can be. "It's funny, my son Colin requests the blue bottle, not the purple or clear ones," she says. "He even gets out the nipple and ring from the drawer while I pour the milk."
Stacey notes that persistence and consistency between caregivers plays a major role when breaking toddlers of the bottle-feeding habit. "I think timing is everything and also that both parents are in on the plan," she says. "One can't give the child a bottle while the other is trying to wean him off of it. I know sometimes it's easier to just give in though when you're tired and just want the kid happy. But persistence is key."
According to the AAP, bottles become customary for babies as a source of nightly comfort – a hard habit to break when they are just learning to walk, talk and eat solid foods by themselves.
"The evening or when your child is sick is usually the hardest time to wean your child from the bottle," says Amie Broughton, a stay-at-home mom of two small children from Batavia, Ohio. Broughton says it's difficult not to do what you can as a mother to put your children at ease when they aren't feeling well. "When they get sick, it's hard, especially if they are crying a lot," she says.
Although many pediatric professionals recommend that children should not use a bottle after the age of 1, parents should not feel discouraged if their kids aren't weaned as soon as they blow out that first birthday candle. The AAP says that it may take up to six months from starting the weaning process before a baby fully uses a cup to drink liquids.
"When my daughter was in daycare, we could not even bring a bottle through the door after she was 12 months," says Broughton, who has a 2-year-old daughter and a 4-year-old son. "It was difficult for daycare to put her down for a nap because she was used to having a bottle."
In order to effectively wean her kids, Broughton has utilized a "hands on" method that makes her children feel as if they have made the decision to stop drinking from a bottle. "What I tell them to do is literally throw away their bottle in the trash," she says. "Then they know they are throwing the bottle away forever and they don't need it any more."
