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Bottle or Cup/Beaker for milk from 6 mths?

I'm just about to change my daughter over to SMA stage 2 follow-on milk & have read on the tin that they recommend getting baby to use a cup or beaker by 6 months.

Has anyone else started to give their baby's milk that way, rather than in a bottle?



I'm assuming its to do with their teeth & to help prevent decay or perhaps disturbing the growth of the teeth?

She has her water in a Tommee Tippee cup now & sips from it pretty well, but I'm not sure how well 6-7 oz of milk would go down? x



(Also posted in born in July)

Replies

  • Wow, that's changed then! I thought it was to be using a cup from 12 - 18 months?



    We started ds on a doidy cup at 5 months, he took a while to get the hang of it but is now 14.5 months and drinks from it indepdendently. He would never entertain breastmilk or formula milk from it though, just would flat-out refuse! He's always had cows' milk in it absolutely fine though, strange baby!



    I think you have to go with what you feel is best, we preferred to keep him on bottles to get the right amount of milk into him, as he would neveer have had enough from his cup, and he was capable of being off them completely at 12 months. The fact he still has a bedtime bottle is simply cuddly time, it's not entirely necessary and once this set of teeth are through we're dropping it in favour of his Gruffalo mug for bedtime milk! x x x
  • I agree it's best to go woith whatever you think will work. If a baby is breastfed for the first 6 months, and then moves on to formula, I do see the point of going straight to a beaker and skipping bottles completely, rather than introducing them then having to wean them off them again. However, like you've said many 6 months olds will only take a few sips from a beaker, and 6 months is very young to risk them dropping milk because they don't like the beaker. I breastfed exclusively for 6 months, but ds was used to bottle as he had a bottle of EBM about once a week - he wasn't keen on formula to start with, so I stuck with bottles rather than beakers as it was easier to get him to take it. He was still off bottles completely by 11 months.

    He did take some persuading to switch from bottle to beaker, and what I eventually did was give some milk in a beaker with breakfast, when he was expecting water, and this got him to try it - then half an hour or so after breakfast i;d give the rest of the feed from a bottle (long enough after so he didn't think if he refused the beaker I'd swap it for a bottle, and I knew he was getting enough milk).

    You could maybe try offering a beaker and see what happens, but if you stick to bottle I really wouldn't worry about it at this age, it's more important that she gets her milk. if she's already used to bottles, you wouldn't be introducing it, it's not one change now and another a but further down the line - and you can always try a cup/beaker again in a couple of months.
  • we've been weaning DD since 5 months (on medical advice) and she's always had either a free-flow Tommee Tippee cup or a Doidy at mealtimes, with water, very diluted baby juice, or formula milk in. At first she would only take a few sips, but now at 6 and a half months she will manage a couple of oz by herself, (though with a fair old amount of spillage - out of the TT cup that is, if it was the doidy by herself the whole lot would go down her front, lol!) - there is no way she would get her 20oz a day down her from a cup, though I aim to keep her heading in that direction. I'm not expecting her to be totally off bottles until 12 months, that's my aim, and my other mini-aim is to get her having her midafternoon milk (her smallest milk feed) from a TT cup, but again I don't think she'll manage it for another month or two from now. I guess you just have to go with what your baba can cope with. I have a friend who has EBF and is planning to go straight to beaker but I'll be interested to see what happens because I suspect it'll be a while before her wee one (same age as mine) can get all her milk from a beaker. xx
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