Giving up bottles

I think it depends on each child, but I think a good range is between 12-18 months. We purposely waited until our daughter was 17 months because we were having a baby AND moving to a new house when she was 16 months and we wanted her to keep that one thing she was comfortable with, because by then it really was a comfort thing for her. She was fully capable of drinking from a cup by 13-14 months.

With my 13 month old son we have bottles only for a convenience factor. He drinks from a sippy cup/bottle exactly the same. I just need to buy more sippy cups to have on hand and I know he would be totally be fine without a bottle. I should put that on my to do list this week! :) I think he actually prefers a sippy cup because he sees his sister drinking from one...peer pressure! hehe

Here are some really good websites that concur AND include some helpful suggestions for weaning from bottle to cup:

Michigan Children's Hospital

San Francisco Children's Hospital

Bottle Weaning

With my kids when I saw that they were turning the bottle upside down to get more out of it I cut my kids off the bottle at 12 months. With my youngest we started to get her off the bottle earlier cause she was chewing on the nipple and it became a game to her not just getting a drink almost a comfort crutch.

My little angel is almost two now, and we've been gradually reducing the amount of formula in her milk bottle for several months now. Our goal is to wean her by her 2nd birthday.

She's very oral, so the bottles are a habit she's giving up very slowly. Obviously by now she eats everything and drinks from a cup, but the bedtime bottle is still required when she's very tired (at bedtime or early in the morning).

12 months....

its easier if you introduce a cup a few months earlier! We started putting juice (not very much) in a cup around 10 months. that way the kids LOVED drinking the out of the cup. When it came time to give up the bottle my kids were great cup drinkers!!!

We also stopped giving her the bottle at 12 months. I wanted her to be weaned off the bottle by the time she started daycare at 1 year. She was introduced to the cup as soon as we started feeding her solid food. It was a toy at first but she quickly learned to drink from it (around 6 1/2 to 7 months if I'm remembering right). We gave it to her, filled with water at meal times until I started to change her from formula to milk.

When I would give her milk I tried to give it in a cup instead of a bottle working on one bottle at a time, starting with daytime bottles. This didn't always work and she stuck to her morning and night time bottles the longest. for those bottles, I would first give her the cup with milk let her drink for awhile and then give her a small bottle. Eventually I just stopped giving her the bottle and she was fine. She drank a lot less at first but now she drinks a lot of milk.