question for bottlefeeding mamas

[sesa70]

How old are your kids when you wean them off the bottle?

I am SO SICK of people telling me dd needs to get off the bottle.

She is 16 months old and we (neither us nor her) are ready to give up the bottle. It is very comforting to her.

Now, its not as if she has a bottle all day long. She gets a bottle just about 3 maybe 4 times a day, when she wakes up in the am, before bed, and before naptime. I am holding her and her bottle and snuggling with her while she drinks. She is not going to bed with a bottle.

I do not see a problem here. An EBF baby would not be forced to ween at this age, why should my dd be forced to give up her equivalent?

Any other mamas choose to bottlefeed past that magic age of 1? If so, how did you get your family and your pediatrician to shut the heck up?

[meghann8]

My first three were bottlefed and I weaned them all around their first birthdays.

But I have changed a lot as a parent since then. I think with the way you are doing it, it's fine. She's still a baby and if BF babies get to have that comfort past their first birthday, then why shouldn't she? You aren't letting her walk around with it, or fall asleep alone in a crib with it or anything, so don't worry about it.

Don't know what you should tell other people though. Some very not nice things pop into my head, but I can't post them here!

[FitMommyOf2]

IMO no reason to rush! We're in the same situation, DS still gets a bottle 3x a day, in the morning, b4 his nap and b4 bed. He's 20 mo. old.
Thankfully I have nobody nagging about this; I wouldn't let anyone! My child, my decision. And I know, eventually he'll get rid of the last remaining bottles.
He won't go to school, still using one, let's put it that way! But if he's 2 yrs or 2.5 and still 'needs' his bottle for bed time for ex. (which I heard is always the last one to be weaned off) I'm fine with it!
Again, that's just my

[sesa70]

Thanks you

I felt the same, its not as if she is running around the house with a bottle all day!

She sometimes needs that few minutes in my arms, cuddling, drinking her bottle, to relax and feel centered again. If she is cranky or whiney, often that will help her calm down (thats the occasional 4th bottle).

I just dont feel that weening her off the bottle right now is right. I think it will be stressful and traumatic for her, and like fitmommy said, she wont be going to school with one, so why hurry?

The next time the dr says something, should I smile and say we are working on it, or just hold my ground and say thank you but we are not ready for that yet?

[usandthegirls]

My two oldest were bottlefed. Abby gave it up at 15 months with much pushing from us. Macie is 27 mos and STILL takes a bottle at bedtime. I will let Brenna self-wean from nursing, so I won't take away Macie's bottle until she comfortable with it. She really gets a lot of comfort from it...Why would I take that away? She is not running around with it all day. She gets one at bedtime and sometimes at naptime. There are days where she doesn't ask for one at all and days where she'll ask for an extra one.

I think it's just fine!

[rowynne]

My first dd just gave hers up on her own right before she turned 1, 2nd dd had hers until 18mos, Sofia had hers until she was 21mos I think..... We also cut it down to nap/bedtime & offered sippy cups at other times. And Sofia had no problem once she didnt get her bottle anymore because she was ready to give it up.

[ceilismom]

I would recommend telling your pediatrician just what you told us. Then, change the subject. It would be one thing if you'd asked for his advice, but you didn't, so it's not open to discussion. For family, smile, say "thank you for your unsolicited opinion about how I raise my child" and change the subject. I ams till working on my natural tendency to try to justify my well thought out choices to ignorant people, but I think refusing to discuss the matter at all is usually the best way to deal with this kind of stuff.

[jls~Kain~Drake]

Ped always told me to ditch the bottle & paci by 12months. With #1, I really tried. MIL sabotaged me, believe it or not. Anyway...when asked, I'd say that he was off of the bottle/paci...but he really wasn't. They didn't get taken away until very shortly after his 2nd birthday. He only had the bottle for naps and bedtime anyway..and it was ONLY water..*NEVER* anything else (because by that time, it was purely comfort). Then, with ds2...again, they kept pushing the wean by 12mo thing and I just told them that he was when he really wasn't. I put the bottles away right around 18 months because I noticed that he really didn't care one way or the other...so it wasn't really weaning him off of them, he just chose by himself to not care for them anymore. He still has the paci, but we're slowly kind of making them less available If he's just running around playing and whatnot, I try to hide the paci's and it's kind of, out-of-sight, out-of-mind. He's not REALLY dependent on the paci, so I'd like to slowly start taking it away before he's 2 and completely addicted to it like ds1 was.

Oh, and ds1 has excellent teeth They're not any sort of misshapen from having the bottle/paci for so long. I read in a magazine that it's not until the age of 3 that the teeth will start being affected by bottle/paci usage.

[urchin_grey]

I do not see a problem here. An EBF baby would not be forced to ween at this age, why should my dd be forced to give up her equivalent?

They shouldn't. There is the "bottle baby mouth" thing, but as long you rinse their mouth out/brush their teeth afterwards, there shouldn't be a problem.

Any other mamas choose to bottlefeed past that magic age of 1? If so, how did you get your family and your pediatrician to shut the heck up?

Yep, and about to make it past 2 as well. LMAO We're skipping sippy cups altogether because he can't figure out how to drink from them - and he can't drink out of a real cup without help yet. My family doesn't bother me because they know how mean I get when people question my parenting choices. His pedi, she just doesn't know.

[titania]

Originally Posted by sesa70 I just dont feel that weening her off the bottle right now is right. I think it will be stressful and traumatic for her, The next time the dr says something, should I smile and say we are working on it, or just hold my ground and say thank you but we are not ready for that yet?

i think you answered your own question! really, its your child, and you know her best. there is no reason she shouldn't be able to have a bottle in the situations you have described. its not like you are giving her root beer in it and putting her in a crib! warm in mama's lap, what could be better?