My son has three meals a day with healthy snacks in between and he drinks water from a tommee tippee sippy cup. He also is offered about 18 oz of milk a day, 9oz from a bottle at bedtime and 9oz from his sippy cup at waking time. This is an attempt to wean him off the bottle. He is not taking kindly to the sippy cup and won't take much milk- he is then too distracted to eat a good breakfast- because he would rather have the milk and is then ravenous mid morning. Do I persevere with the sippy cup in a morning, and perhaps give him a whole milk yogurt/ fromage frais mid-morning to push him on till dinnertime?


A All children find it hard to give up the bottle but at nearly one year it’s a good time to start the process. When weaning off the bottle onto a cup it is best do it gradually. Because the morning bottle is one of the hardest to give up it might be best to tackle it another way.

The following are some suggestions you might like to try:

• Give him about five ozs of milk in the early morning bottle and he will then have room for his breakfast. Put the rest of the milk in a cup and offer it to him after he has eaten. Offer the cup at lunchtime with a little milk in it and you can continue to give the bedtime bottle as usual.
• It might also be a good idea to try different cups. Some children do better with a cup with two handles. He will make a mess at first but will soon learn how to use it.
• Many babies drink less milk while they are learning to use a cup and you can add a yogurt later if you think that he has not had enough milk during the day.
• Do persevere giving the cup at lunchtime and at other times during the day, this is the easiest time to introduce something new. Once he is drinking well from the cup phase out the morning bottle by giving less milk in the bottle and replace it with water before you completely cut it out. By then he should be happy and skilled at drinking from a cup.
• Be positive. Reward every effort by clapping and smiling every time he touches the cup, picks it up or drinks a little from it.
• Be patient and allow several weeks for the whole process.
• Be consistent and he will soon be drinking happily from a cup

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