Bottle or sippy for cows milk?

[@llli*toddlerandtwins]

We plan to slowly introduce cows milk to DD1 and DD2 who turned 11 months today(!!!). They use bottles while I'm at work, and get sippy with water at dinner time for fun.

I am not sure if I should feed cows milk in the same way as breastmilk-bottle or sippy?

[@llli*mommy2lilah]

It's totally up to you, I always felt weird with the idea of my kids getting anything other than my milk in their bottles. We went straight to an open top cup at the babysitter's house and a straw cup at home with Lilah. She was about 14 months old at the time. With Trixie we switched to the open top cup both places at 12ish months - she had my milk from an open top cup until the freezer stash was gone and then onto the cow's milk.

I still nurse, she just doesn't drink anything out of bottles.

[@llli*toddlerandtwins]

I always felt weird with the idea of my kids getting anything other than my milk in their bottles.

Was thinking the same thing, but also wondered if I give cows milk in a sippy and BM in a bottle, will my girls reject a sippy even when it has BM?

On the flip side, I guess I am not worried about them rejecting a bottle, we can always put BM in a sippy sooner than later.


I don't know how you did an open cup so early! My son is almost 3 and I swear every other day he spills his drink (open cup). drives us bananas!

[@llli*mommy2lilah]

My babysitter is AWESOME. She doesn't do sippies. We have tiny cups and hold the cup for them for a while, but Beatrix doesn't want or need us to hold them anymore. Also, they've always had cups in the bath and drink out of those.

[@llli*mommy2lilah]

I was thinking about this some more... my baby doesn't have unsupervised use of open top cups at this age. I hand the cup to her and then take it back when she's done taking a drink. Otherwise she would dump it out or stick her hand in it, throw it on the floor, etc. I guess that Lilah had unrestricted access to her cup at dinner when we moved her from the high chair to the booster seat. Maybe she was around 2 years old, a bit older, perhaps?

We used the straw cups at home when Lilah was this age and she drank way too much milk. Once we switched to only having water in the straw cups and milk from open-top cups she started eating more solids and we didn't have to restrict her milk intake anymore because she was doing it naturally herself.

We also only do milk with meals for Trixie when she's in the high chair. Otherwise, I just nurse her. My babysitter only allows the kids to eat and drink anything in the kitchen. So there is never a circumstance where she would be walking around with an open top cup, which would certainly be a recipe for disaster.

[@llli*scienceteachermommy]

We switched to everything in sippy cups at a year with DD and DS2; DS1 switched himself to sippies at about 9 months, mainly because he would drink the water that was left in the cups DD left around the house. We have only really started introducing cow milk but that is only because I had a fairly substantial freezer stash.

[@llli*joe.s.mom]

My little boy was fed with a bottle when I was gone, didn't ever take a pacifier, and was never very interested in lovies or blankies or anything like that. Result being, he was VERY bottle-attached, and I didn't feel right taking that comfort away from him so suddenly (he's also very stubborn, and just rejected the sippy). So we did cow's milk in a bottle for naps and nighttimes, and in a sippy or cup for other times.

The down-side is that he still gets a bottle or two a day, and he's almost three! But I do think that for some kids, it's okay to wean them gradually.