- What's your number one job when you have a baby?
It's to keep them alive, isn't it?
And the way we do that is by feeding them.
That is really our number one job,
is to keep this baby fed.
Whether it's breastfed or bottle fed,
it doesn't really matter.
It's our job to keep a child fed, right?
And so, what happens then when we spend a whole year
feeding our babies liquid,
either in breast or formula or bottle?
Then, around the 12th month mark,
it's hard for us to make a shift.
So I want to talk a little bit today about
moving your child off of bottles.
Now again, fluid,
liquids have been your baby's number one,
primary source of calories for a long time now.
And it's hard for us as adults
to now switch that around
and make calories coming from food source
the primary and liquids become secondary.
The liquid becomes the beverage.
And I will tell you, you know,
and I've been there myself so I get it,
but I can tell you that so many parents
are hanging onto bottles much longer than they need to be.
And they're doing that for a couple of reasons.
One, they're worried that their child's not eating enough.
So they're giving eight ounces,
three or four times a day in bottle form
because their child's not eating solids well.
Or they feel like I really need to fill this little tummy up
with lots of milk right before bed
because that child's having sleep challenges.
Or the third scenario is that your child won't drink
milk in a cup or a sippy cup.
So you're hanging onto this bottle because you're worried
that she'll never drink any more milk ever again.
So I'm gonna give you a few ways
to get out of those three scenarios.
The first one, good news.
The minute you cut the calories that are coming from milk,
the more your child's going to eat.
And again, this is gonna take a day or two
for you to kinda convince yourself of this.
But you really need to monitor
the calorie consumption that's coming in via fluid.
So toddlers are really good
at regulating their calorie needs,
and they need roughly, you know,
every child's a bit different,
but on average, around 1100 calories a day.
So if they're taking in 600 calories
via milk in eight ounce bottles,
they don't really need to eat that much.
I mean, to make up 600 calories,
that's not a lot of food.
So it's gonna feel like they're not eating enough.
But as soon as you cut those calories coming from liquid,
they will, their body will say,
"Hey, we need to make up for some lost calorie here."
And they'll start eating more solids.
And that's what you want at this point.
You need them to start doing that.
Alright, so that's good news for the first scenario.
So the second scenario is if you've got a toddler
who's not sleeping so well,
it has nothing to do with food.
It's all about prop association.
So if your baby is falling asleep with a bottle,
waking up in the night,
it's the bottle that's the problem.
The bottle is the sleep prop,
so every time your child falls asleep,
they think, I need to have a bottle in my mouth.
That's how I do this.
The good news is that you can teach them
how to fall asleep without bottles in their mouth.
And then they're going to become really great sleepers
and get off the bottle, so it's a double win there.
If you need some help with that,
check out The Sleep Sense Program.
I've got a great strategy in there
for breaking the association between bottles and sleep.
The third is that your child won't take milk
in anything else, so that's why you're hanging onto
dear life to this bottle.
And here's some more good news.
They will once the bottles disappear.
They'll come around.
They may go on a little bit of a milk strike for a few days,
where they're kinda making their point,
that they really like the bottle better than the sippy.
But then they'll eventually come back to it.
They certainly will not consume as much at one sitting.
It's much more difficult to drink
an entire eight ounce glass of milk
as it is to slowly and happily suck on a bottle,
so they might not have as much.
But they don't need as much,
and that's something you have to keep in mind too.
They only need anywhere from eight to 16 ounces.
So eight ounces is not much.
You could give two ounces at breakfast, two ounces at lunch,
and two ounces at bed or in your dinner hour.
And that's gonna be fine.
A lot of people would say that children
probably shouldn't even be drinking milk in the first place.
You could find a lot of people
who would support that theory.
So just to ease off,
take the pressure off yourself a little bit.
It's not the end of the world.
They will come back to it
and not as in as much quantity.
One little tip before I say goodbye though
is if you have a child who's really resisting the sippy cup,
just move into a normal cup with a straw.
A plastic cup, let's be safe,
in case they throw that,
but a lot of kids really get a kick out of using a straw.
There's a bit of novelty there.
And the motion is similar to sucking on a bottle,
so they kinda get it.
It makes more sense to them
than actually taking a cup and bringing it to your mouth.
That's a little harder.
So that might help with the transition.
(clears throat)
But just keep in mind, after the first birthday,
food is the calorie source.
Liquids are a beverage.
Thanks so much for watching.
Sleep well.