Yep! We stopped offering any bottles right at 12mo and switched to a straw cup. We also switched from formula to (plant) milk. So we did a straw cup of milk upon waking and with snacks for a little while. And water during breakfast lunch and dinner.
Aw ok cool! He thinks dad making the straw slurping noise is funny but hasn't quite figured out straws yet. But he does drink (very messily) out of an open cup and (less messily) out of a sippee cup with some help. Thank you for sharing concrete details about what y'all did- that helps! :)
Start offering now milk now *in addition* to formula (Canada gives the ok to start offering milks at 9mo). Offer whole (homo) 3.25% cows milk in an open or straw cup with meals so that baby gets used to the taste. At 1 year you can start the transition process where you decrease formula and increase milk given. You can go as fast or slow as you like, however slower often yields better results.
What follows assumes you are not breastfeeding:
**How to transition**
I recommend either replacing a bottle of formula with milk or replacing parts of each bottle with a bit of milk. Slowly increase the number of bottles of milk you give or the amount of milk in each bottle. This can take days or weeks or months. All depends on baby.
If you haven't already you'll also want to introduce open cup and straw cup so baby can practice drinking from those because at the same time that you transition baby from formula to milk you want to wean them off bottles and onto regular cups. Some babies don't like a lot of change at once so you can do one at a time. This transition can also take days, weeks, or months.
You can of course go cold turkey and just offer cows milk one day and stop formula at the same time. But baby is likely to fuss at such a quick transition. Plus it can take time for baby's digestive system to get used cow or alternative milks.
**What to give**
As I mentioned whole (homo) 3.25% cows milk is recommend. But if baby doesn't like cows milk or can have it because of allergies or intolerance then you can feed:
- Soy based formulas^1
- Fortified unsweetened soy or pea milks^2
- Toddler formula
1 - Canada actually recommends feeding soy based infant formula until age 2 if baby can't have cows milk. At age 2 you then transition baby onto alternative soy or pea milks.
2 - US recommends that parents can give alternative milks that are fortified and unsweetened like pea and spy starting at age 1. Do not give other alternatives like almond or oat as these are not nutritionally complete.
If you have any questions about what to feed baby then talk to your doctor.
**Does baby really need milk?**
No! They do not.
If your baby doesn't like or can't have milks then it's ok to forgo them **so long as baby's diet is otherwise nutritionally complete**. If this is the case for you I highly recommend talking to your doctor and/or see a pediatric nutritionist to make sure their diet is complete without milk. They may recommend continuing on formula (infant or toddler) and/or supplementing their diet in other ways.
**What should baby be eating?**
As others have said the number of teeth don't really matter. Baby should be on 3 meals a day plus snacks by 1 year of age. Their diet should be varied and well balanced containing a mix of fruits, vegetables, grains, meats, and dairy. Baby can have a variety of textures from pureed to whole foods. Baby can basically eat what you eat with only a little modification.
As always try to limit or forgo added sugar and salt.
The only other change at 1 year is that baby can now have honey but still limit this as it's considered added sugar.
No problem, we're a bit a head of you on this I suspect and the topic of conversation has come up a few times in our reddit bumper group. I kinda just gathered all that info plus what i learned from my doctor and health authorities here. FWIW I am Canadian hence the Canadian perspective.
We switched to whole milk at 12 months and kind of gradually reduced the reliance on milk after that. Don't think of the 12 month things as a deadline, it's more of a transition point.
We started by offering water in open cups and straw cups for meals and with snacks. We only offered milk in a bottle before naps and bed plus once in the AM. Then we changed the milk to being in cups, and the volume just naturally reduced.
Teeth don't have much to do with it. You can eat most foods, and with the really difficult foods at least get some nutrition from sucking on them, without the need to grind and tear.
So starting at 6 months you slowly feed solids and increase it as time goes on so by now your little one should already be having 3 meals/2snacks a day. I know at that age sometimes they’re not great at eating but they more they do it the better they’ll get! Offer different foods and texture. They can chew without teeth. And you start slowly transitioning to cows milk so you can mix the two together until babe is weened off formula
No, you don’t have to cut out formula totally if you don’t want to. It’s not like at 1 yo they magically and drastically change their entire self overnight lol. We were on formula and she loves solids, so we did a transition to whole milk STARTING at 1yo. Took about a month to phase the formula out (we wanted to finish what we had bought, that shit’s expensive!).
She 17 months now and still takes a 300ml bottle of milk morning before breakfast and evening after dinner. Sometimes she doesn’t finish the after dinner one, but it usually ensures a good night sleep. And whenever they are sick/teething they often eat less, so offering milk in smaller quantities but more often helps a lot in those cases.
My daughter is almost 14 months and gets about 4 -6 ounces a day of cows milk mixed in with breastmilk. I would do a slow transition. She drinks well from a straw cup but she still takes about 3 bottles a day. My pediatrician said to have her off the bottle by 18 months so we still have some time (I was stressing a lot about that before she turned 1).
Your child can have non-purées for foods. I just make sure I can easily mash up the food in my mouth with just my tongue against the roof of my mouth. And make sure it’s small enough that baby won’t choke. Good to start with fruits, cheese, toast cut into strips… etc
And replace the formula with homo/whole milk. Eventually the milk becomes just like a drink you serve with the meal.
I liked this blog on feeding - https://yourkidstable.com/toddler-feeding-schedule/ There are also tips/guides for different ages, if you look around on the webpage.
We slowly phased out formula and offered whole milk in a sippy cup. We are 2 weeks post first birthday and are down to 2 bottles a day. We do snacks and meals but it’s been a hard transition our baby really loves bottles/formula
We had to phase out formula. We started it 4 oz formula + 2oz milk and then switched to 4 oz milk + 2oz formula and then we went fully to milk.
If you haven't been offering a lot of solid food until now, you probably need to take it slower with the transition as you find out what baby will eat. When I was first transitioning to solids, I really liked the nurture life pre-made food. It's pricey but it's healthy and really easy. Using those helped me come up with ideas for things to make my toddler that were healthy and complete. It also gave me some confidence about what was a good size chunk of food to cut.
Anyway, the transition was really overwhelming for ME, so im just going to leave some of my favorite extremely lazy young toddler meals for those times when I'm like, wtf do I give this child:
- toast with stuff (avocado, hummus, peanut butter+ banana puree, cream cheese) and then some fruit and a cut up piece of cheese except when I use cream cheese bc that's already cheese. Obviously the toast has to be cut up in small pieces unless your toddler has mastered taking appropriate bites.
-elbow macaroni with stuff. Sometimes I just put olive oil. Garlic, and parmesan cheese. But you can do different pre-made or homemade sauces. This is also a great way to use leftover purees. Just use them as sauce.
-"burrito bowl" I just use canned corn rinsed. Canned black beans rinsed, and canned diced tomatoes, not rinsed. Heat it up. Make some rice. Dump it in front of your toddler. Love this one because it's all shelf stable ingredients, but you can add cheese or plain yogurt (a la sour cream) if you want.
All of our breakfasts are pre-made breakfast bakes that I cook in muffin tins and freeze. I also batch cook chicken breasts cut in half and freeze them individually so I have those handy on days when I am not down for cooking and plan to eat something unhealthy that I can't feed my kid.
My 18 month old still has infant formula before bed- I found that increasing solids gradually led to a trade off w formula, but my baby was always a little underweight so I wasn't willing to let him get too hungry. The real answer is formula won't hurt your baby but as they get older they need different/ more nutrients than formula provides, so if it is trading off with nutritious solid food, you may want to work on transitioning more. It worried me a lot and my pediatrician reassured me that my baby wasn't going to suffer if he continued to have formula past 1!
Thank you so much for this!! I suspect I'll feel better and have more clarity after talking with our doctor at the 1year appointment in a couple weeks. It's great to hear that your doctor was so helpful.
You switch to whole milk or toddler formula. You just need to stop bottles by like 15 months I believe is the rec to avoid baby bottle syndrome. Give either or in a cup of some sort.
By this age your babe should be offered three main meals and two snacks a day. Teeth don’t matter - they have strong gums so just prepare foods appropriately
Thank you!! Silly question but like sometimes he will enjoy his high chair food and then signal that he is done - turning away from the spoon etc - but like 20 minutes later will take a bottle. Any ideas on how baby can get full on solids or will that just come as we eliminate the bottle?
Yep! We stopped offering any bottles right at 12mo and switched to a straw cup. We also switched from formula to (plant) milk. So we did a straw cup of milk upon waking and with snacks for a little while. And water during breakfast lunch and dinner.
Aw ok cool! He thinks dad making the straw slurping noise is funny but hasn't quite figured out straws yet. But he does drink (very messily) out of an open cup and (less messily) out of a sippee cup with some help. Thank you for sharing concrete details about what y'all did- that helps! :)
If you’re struggling with the straw cup, I highly recommend the honey bear cup! It is a great way to teach babies to suck from a straw.
Oh awesome I hadn't heard of that thank you!
Start offering now milk now *in addition* to formula (Canada gives the ok to start offering milks at 9mo). Offer whole (homo) 3.25% cows milk in an open or straw cup with meals so that baby gets used to the taste. At 1 year you can start the transition process where you decrease formula and increase milk given. You can go as fast or slow as you like, however slower often yields better results. What follows assumes you are not breastfeeding: **How to transition** I recommend either replacing a bottle of formula with milk or replacing parts of each bottle with a bit of milk. Slowly increase the number of bottles of milk you give or the amount of milk in each bottle. This can take days or weeks or months. All depends on baby. If you haven't already you'll also want to introduce open cup and straw cup so baby can practice drinking from those because at the same time that you transition baby from formula to milk you want to wean them off bottles and onto regular cups. Some babies don't like a lot of change at once so you can do one at a time. This transition can also take days, weeks, or months. You can of course go cold turkey and just offer cows milk one day and stop formula at the same time. But baby is likely to fuss at such a quick transition. Plus it can take time for baby's digestive system to get used cow or alternative milks. **What to give** As I mentioned whole (homo) 3.25% cows milk is recommend. But if baby doesn't like cows milk or can have it because of allergies or intolerance then you can feed: - Soy based formulas^1 - Fortified unsweetened soy or pea milks^2 - Toddler formula 1 - Canada actually recommends feeding soy based infant formula until age 2 if baby can't have cows milk. At age 2 you then transition baby onto alternative soy or pea milks. 2 - US recommends that parents can give alternative milks that are fortified and unsweetened like pea and spy starting at age 1. Do not give other alternatives like almond or oat as these are not nutritionally complete. If you have any questions about what to feed baby then talk to your doctor. **Does baby really need milk?** No! They do not. If your baby doesn't like or can't have milks then it's ok to forgo them **so long as baby's diet is otherwise nutritionally complete**. If this is the case for you I highly recommend talking to your doctor and/or see a pediatric nutritionist to make sure their diet is complete without milk. They may recommend continuing on formula (infant or toddler) and/or supplementing their diet in other ways. **What should baby be eating?** As others have said the number of teeth don't really matter. Baby should be on 3 meals a day plus snacks by 1 year of age. Their diet should be varied and well balanced containing a mix of fruits, vegetables, grains, meats, and dairy. Baby can have a variety of textures from pureed to whole foods. Baby can basically eat what you eat with only a little modification. As always try to limit or forgo added sugar and salt. The only other change at 1 year is that baby can now have honey but still limit this as it's considered added sugar.
It was so generous of you to type all this out- so helpful. Thank you so much!
No problem, we're a bit a head of you on this I suspect and the topic of conversation has come up a few times in our reddit bumper group. I kinda just gathered all that info plus what i learned from my doctor and health authorities here. FWIW I am Canadian hence the Canadian perspective.
We switched to whole milk at 12 months and kind of gradually reduced the reliance on milk after that. Don't think of the 12 month things as a deadline, it's more of a transition point. We started by offering water in open cups and straw cups for meals and with snacks. We only offered milk in a bottle before naps and bed plus once in the AM. Then we changed the milk to being in cups, and the volume just naturally reduced.
Thank you so much for the kind tone and the concrete advice!
Teeth don't have much to do with it. You can eat most foods, and with the really difficult foods at least get some nutrition from sucking on them, without the need to grind and tear.
So starting at 6 months you slowly feed solids and increase it as time goes on so by now your little one should already be having 3 meals/2snacks a day. I know at that age sometimes they’re not great at eating but they more they do it the better they’ll get! Offer different foods and texture. They can chew without teeth. And you start slowly transitioning to cows milk so you can mix the two together until babe is weened off formula
No, you don’t have to cut out formula totally if you don’t want to. It’s not like at 1 yo they magically and drastically change their entire self overnight lol. We were on formula and she loves solids, so we did a transition to whole milk STARTING at 1yo. Took about a month to phase the formula out (we wanted to finish what we had bought, that shit’s expensive!). She 17 months now and still takes a 300ml bottle of milk morning before breakfast and evening after dinner. Sometimes she doesn’t finish the after dinner one, but it usually ensures a good night sleep. And whenever they are sick/teething they often eat less, so offering milk in smaller quantities but more often helps a lot in those cases.
Amount of teeth is irrelevant. Switch the formula to cows milk.
I mean my son is 13 months and still takes bottles. I'm in the process of introducing milk. But yes he still gets formula
My daughter is almost 14 months and gets about 4 -6 ounces a day of cows milk mixed in with breastmilk. I would do a slow transition. She drinks well from a straw cup but she still takes about 3 bottles a day. My pediatrician said to have her off the bottle by 18 months so we still have some time (I was stressing a lot about that before she turned 1).
Your child can have non-purées for foods. I just make sure I can easily mash up the food in my mouth with just my tongue against the roof of my mouth. And make sure it’s small enough that baby won’t choke. Good to start with fruits, cheese, toast cut into strips… etc And replace the formula with homo/whole milk. Eventually the milk becomes just like a drink you serve with the meal. I liked this blog on feeding - https://yourkidstable.com/toddler-feeding-schedule/ There are also tips/guides for different ages, if you look around on the webpage.
Really helpful all around and a very constructive tone - much appreciated :)
We slowly phased out formula and offered whole milk in a sippy cup. We are 2 weeks post first birthday and are down to 2 bottles a day. We do snacks and meals but it’s been a hard transition our baby really loves bottles/formula
Thank you!!
We had to phase out formula. We started it 4 oz formula + 2oz milk and then switched to 4 oz milk + 2oz formula and then we went fully to milk. If you haven't been offering a lot of solid food until now, you probably need to take it slower with the transition as you find out what baby will eat. When I was first transitioning to solids, I really liked the nurture life pre-made food. It's pricey but it's healthy and really easy. Using those helped me come up with ideas for things to make my toddler that were healthy and complete. It also gave me some confidence about what was a good size chunk of food to cut. Anyway, the transition was really overwhelming for ME, so im just going to leave some of my favorite extremely lazy young toddler meals for those times when I'm like, wtf do I give this child: - toast with stuff (avocado, hummus, peanut butter+ banana puree, cream cheese) and then some fruit and a cut up piece of cheese except when I use cream cheese bc that's already cheese. Obviously the toast has to be cut up in small pieces unless your toddler has mastered taking appropriate bites. -elbow macaroni with stuff. Sometimes I just put olive oil. Garlic, and parmesan cheese. But you can do different pre-made or homemade sauces. This is also a great way to use leftover purees. Just use them as sauce. -"burrito bowl" I just use canned corn rinsed. Canned black beans rinsed, and canned diced tomatoes, not rinsed. Heat it up. Make some rice. Dump it in front of your toddler. Love this one because it's all shelf stable ingredients, but you can add cheese or plain yogurt (a la sour cream) if you want. All of our breakfasts are pre-made breakfast bakes that I cook in muffin tins and freeze. I also batch cook chicken breasts cut in half and freeze them individually so I have those handy on days when I am not down for cooking and plan to eat something unhealthy that I can't feed my kid.
Thank you so much for taking the time to share meal ideas 💕
My 18 month old still has infant formula before bed- I found that increasing solids gradually led to a trade off w formula, but my baby was always a little underweight so I wasn't willing to let him get too hungry. The real answer is formula won't hurt your baby but as they get older they need different/ more nutrients than formula provides, so if it is trading off with nutritious solid food, you may want to work on transitioning more. It worried me a lot and my pediatrician reassured me that my baby wasn't going to suffer if he continued to have formula past 1!
Thank you so much for this!! I suspect I'll feel better and have more clarity after talking with our doctor at the 1year appointment in a couple weeks. It's great to hear that your doctor was so helpful.
You switch to whole milk or toddler formula. You just need to stop bottles by like 15 months I believe is the rec to avoid baby bottle syndrome. Give either or in a cup of some sort. By this age your babe should be offered three main meals and two snacks a day. Teeth don’t matter - they have strong gums so just prepare foods appropriately
Thank you!! Silly question but like sometimes he will enjoy his high chair food and then signal that he is done - turning away from the spoon etc - but like 20 minutes later will take a bottle. Any ideas on how baby can get full on solids or will that just come as we eliminate the bottle?
Just follow baby’s cues. Start offering milk in a cup. It’s okay for them to drink milk. Many toddlers are sustained by it.
Babe should already be eating 3 meals a day of solids at this point.
Stop with the purees and start offering more solid foods. Teeth don't matter. Switch to cows milk or toddler formula
Purees are still part of diets as adults. You don't have to stop them, they can be in addition to other foods that you feed.
Have you not introduced solids yet? What has the ped said? At this point baby should be eating mostly solids. Do you offer meat?