Sorry for those of you who are male or don’t have kids, you might want to skip this post! 🙂
This is going to be super quick because I’m running around like a crazy person trying to get everything ready for this party on Saturday but I would love any advice you might have on weaning your child. Charlotte hasn’t had a problem with taking a bottle but for the past month or so we’ve been trying to get her to take her milk from a sippy cup instead of a bottle (this wasn’t frequently) but she has pretty much refused. I’m wondering if I should switch her from nursing to whole milk on a bottle instead of a sippy cup because of this or if I should stick it out with the sippy? I don’t really want to use the bottle because then I would just have to get her off of those in a few months but I can’t let her starve. Any ideas on that or a schedule that weans gradually or anything would really be great! Thanks!
Kristy
May 20, 2010 at 10:58 pmI started my girls on very watered down juice in a sippy cup to make the transition to a cup while they nursed–they don’t get any juice now, but I did it for a couple of weeks (just so you know it doesn’t have to be a continuous thing). I also took the valves out of the cups to teach cup use until they figured out how to use the cup. You might use different colors or styles for milk vs. water so that she identifies what’s in it by color. It also made it easy for me to know if a cup needed to go back in the fridge.
Then as I dropped nursings, one at a time, starting during the day and saving the last one at night and first one in the morning for last (those were the ones we were both most attached to), she got a cup of milk to replace it. They will eventually give in. You can get the dairy in through yogurt or cheese if your gal has a temporary strike on drinking milk.
As for my schedule, I would drop one nursing every week with my first. With my second, we decreased by minutes because she loved to nurse and that worked better for her. We’ll see how the little guy does at the end of the year.
Best wishes!
Jennifer
May 21, 2010 at 12:06 amThanks Kristy! Charlotte loves drinking juice/water from sippy but for some reason doesn’t like drinking pumped milk from it.
Those are great ideas though and especially the dropping one nursing a week. I think I’ll go with that method and take it slowly.
Thanks!
Lindsey
May 21, 2010 at 12:40 amI’m not a mommy….but my sister did whole milk in the bottle and then did the sippy about a month later. She said it was easier for EK to do one change at a time. 🙂
Whatever you decide on, I’m sure will be just perfect!
Jay, Leslie and William
May 21, 2010 at 12:36 pmWell, I’m not expert because we’ve been trying to figure out this whole weaning thing ourselves over the last month. I’m happy to report, though, that I think we’re going to be totally weaned by the week, though : ) I started out by getting sippy cups that had nipples almost like bottles. He likes born-free cups with the 6 mo nipples…very much like a bottle end, but with handles like a sippy cup. I started a few months ago just offering water or juice with each meal to get him used to it. After a few weeks of that, I replaced his pre-lunch nursing session with pumped milk from the sippy cup with his lunch. After a week of that, we replaced the afternoon snack with the same thing. So on, and so forth, until we were totally on the sippy cup with BM in them. After we got comfortable with the sippy cups, I started the transition off BM. We started with 1/4 cow’s milk, 3/4 BM….for us, it was 1 oz cow’s, 3 oz BM. I did that for one week. Once he was comfortable with that, we went to 1/2 1/2. Did that for a week….well you get the picture. We’re still doing about 1/4 BM for now. Also, he didn’t seem to like whole milk as much as he likes 2%, so that’s what we do. Our ped said that was perfectly fine. I get the horizon organic, because it seems to stay fresher, longer, especially in the beginning when he’s only drinking small amounts of it.
I was concerned that he wasn’t drinking enough, and that he wasn’t having enough wet diapers in the beginning, but our ped basically said that a child is not going to allow himself to get dehydrated. He said just off the cup often, and when he’s thirsty, he’ll drink. He also likes to drink our of our glasses as well!
My plan was to continue to nurse in the mornings and evenings as long as he wanted, however, he has pretty much weaned himself from the evening feedings as well. He started severely biting at every feeding, and just didn’t want to do it anymore. It’s been hard for me, emotionally, to see this relationship come to an end after so long, but I know that you can’t force these things. So, now he gets a sippy cup of just BM before bed, and he’ll still nurse in the mornings…most mornings anyway. I’m DONE pumping. I hope to never see that pump again until our next one!! We have a good freezer stash, so we’ll continue giving him just BM before bed and in the mornings as long as that lasts. It’s been a wonderful experience, as I’m sure you’ll agree, but part of me is relieved that it’s coming to a close. Hope this helps…sorry for the long post!!