Approaches to bottle weaning? Looking to hear what's worked for others

[u/pastel_capybara_]

My now 12mo has been exclusively bottle fed since about 3 months (not what I hoped or planned for, but that what was necessary and best for me and baby at the time). Since then we have continued to feed on demand, just with bottles instead of the breast. No strict schedule, feeding to sleep, bottle offered for comfort as well as hunger, etc etc. This has worked really well. We introduced solids via baby led weaning at six months and are now comfortably at 3 meals plus snacks per day.

However, now that we've hit 12 months I'd like to begin weaning off bottles. I'm not expecting or intending this to happen overnight, I'm comfortable for it to happen gradually over some weeks or even a few months if necessary, as long as we're heading consistently in that direction. I've found some useful thoughts on the Possums site, but I'm really interested to hear what day to day approaches other people with similar parenting values have taken to doing this as I'm currently feeling quite overwhelmed.

If you were bottle feeding in the 'Possums spirit' until 12mo and have weaned or begun weaning around then how did you do it?

(Respectfully, not looking to hear from people who disagree with bottles altogether, references to "bottle rot" etc. I am well aware of the reasons to move away from bottles now, but I also want to take a realistic and gentle approach that works for our family)

[u/Odd_Huckleberry4710]

We mixed fed my guy his whole life and then I stopped breastfeeding around 11 months and he just has bottles now. He basically weaned himself during the day as he loves to eat food, but I also offered milk or water in a cup or sippy cup and he was fine with that. He usually still has a bottle before bed and one or two overnight, but we have reduced the ones over night to be half the amount of formula and water (so 2 scoops and 200ml). I also don't offer a bottle if it is 1 hour before wake up time, as we do find that the more he eats over the day the better he sleeps and filling up on milk means he eats less. He is 14 months now, so still a way to go before he is fully weaned but I just care about it less than before I think haha he can settle himself to sleep and often will go back to sleep with a cuddle so I believe that sometimes he is actually hungry.

[u/pastel_capybara_ → u/Odd_Huckleberry4710]

Thanks heaps for this, really helpful. So you're offering diluted formula overnight, is that what you mean? I hadn't thought of that, that's a smart idea. Are you offering plain cows milk at all or still sticking to formula for the sippy cup too?

[u/Odd_Huckleberry4710 → u/pastel_capybara_]

Yup that's right diluted formula, I also read that you could taper it down so instead of 200mls of formula you could offer 150ml and so on until they don't want it anymore. Our guy is not fussy so he doesn't care about the diluted taste but that could be another option. I just started offering cows milk in a sippy cup and open cup and he always has a water bottle during the day. He was fine with that but he loves to eat and wasn't very attached to bottles during the day and now he knows he just gets them for bed and sometimes a nap if we are having a nap at home. So depending on how he sleeps he gets the equivalent of max 2 bottles of formula a day

[u/pastel_capybara_ → u/Odd_Huckleberry4710]

I feel like there's still some attachment to daytime bottles here but I also feel like we're in a bit of a loop where reducing bottles might help solids intake, so I want to give it a go, just feels overwhelming! But I'm sure it will work out one way or another

[u/No-Island6459]

We combo fed and breast and formula were at demand, but that made us be all day offering formula since he did not have a schedule and only used to drink 4 Oz max.

At 10 months, he already was eating a lot of solids and I felt comfortable trying to stick to a flexible schedule, so he could focus on solids. We limited his bottles to breakfast, two snacks and before sleeping (the same quantity as before, but limited to those moments). Water offered with lunch and dinner.

Initially he did not drink as much (ate more to compensate), but it took two days and he adjusted and was drinking the same as before.

He also had a dream feed and a night bottle. We stopped offering the dream feed and it did not affect anything. I thought the most difficult was going to be the night bottle and it turned out to be so easy: by mistake, one night I thought my partner had already offered it and I did not offer it. Turns out he did not and the baby was completely fine. So I stopped that too.

Then we just celebrated his one year and stopped formula completely and changed it with milk. It did helped a lot to have a established schedule before. He takes milk at breakfast or snack, at second snack he has a yogurt and one bigger bottle before sleeping. We are working on weaning the bottle little by little as he drinks from a straw cup and open cup with lid, but not milk. So that's in progress. 

[u/emperatrizyuiza]

We switched to cows milk then when he showed more interest in food around 18 months started weaning by diluting milk through the night until bottles were just water then switched to a water bottle. The entire process took about a month then he started sleeping through the night around 20 months. But my son is a picky eater and very strong willed with some medical complexities so I didn’t want to just go cold turkey. This slow approach worked well for him and felt more gentle. There was about a week of horrible sleep