The question of how to wean your baby from a bottle worries many parents. First of all, you need to know when to start this procedure. Pediatricians advise starting the process of weaning a baby from a bottle when he already knows how to sit on his own, drink from a cup and eat from a spoon.
There are two good reasons for this. Firstly, liquid cereals and various milk mixtures are not enough for a growing child's body. He also needs various trace elements, especially iron, as well as solid food. And if a child eats liquid food from a bottle, he will drink more of it than his body needs, and he will refuse another, solid food. As a result, he will not receive much of the useful and necessary for his growth and development.
Secondly, sucking compote, juice, tea, sweet and milk fluids from the bottle adversely affects the development and growth of the baby’s teeth, leads to caries and the formation of a malocclusion.
Child psychologists do not advise starting the process of weaning from a bottle if the baby has suffered emotional upheavals, such as the birth of a second child. A bottle for a child is not only food, but also an attribute of calm, pleasure and quick falling asleep.
How to wean a baby from a bottle?
Do not try to do this in one day. For a child, this process will be less painful if it occurs slowly and gradually.
From the age of six months, begin to introduce the child to a cup. Prepare some cups with vivid colorful drawings. Let him play with them, for example, while swimming, consider, get used to them.
Try to drink it from a cup with a very tasty drink. Let him take at least a couple of sips from her. Do this several times a day. It is advisable that the child gets used to drinking different drinks from a cup: tea, juices, fruit drinks, milk formulas.
After nine months, try once a day, for example, at lunch, to dispense with a bottle without feeding, using only solid food and a cup of drink.
Get for feeding your baby a special cup - "pour out".
Stop using the pacifier bottle while walking.
Try to use the bottle less often when feeding, and the spoon and cup more often.
Try to pour a less tasty liquid, for example, less sweet, with the addition of water and salt into the bottle. In the cup, on the contrary, pour more delicious drinks, more sweet and concentrated. Let your baby choose the food tastier, and this will be the one that is in the cup.
How to wean a baby from a bottle? The task for different children is solved in different ways. For some, this process is completely painless; other children may experience deep stress. If you are going to breast-feed a baby for up to a year, then you should not use a bottle for feeding. Let him immediately get used to the cup and spoon.
How to wean a child from a bottle, you need to know all parents, especially mothers. The greater the age of the child, the more problems when weaning from the bottle. Therefore, it is necessary to begin this work as early as possible.
If the baby refuses to eat without a bottle, do not give it at his first whim. Try to distract him first, and when he calms down, again offer food or drink from a cup. If the baby categorically refuses a cup, give a bottle.
Many mothers are concerned about the problem of how to wean a baby from a bottle at night. The baby requires a bottle if hungry. Therefore, before going to bed, you need to feed him well. In addition, the mother must be sure that during the day her child ate a sufficient amount of food. Before falling asleep, you need to help the child release air from the intestines, stroke his tummy. The child wakes up at night also because he hears the smell of mom - the smell of milk. To prevent this, it is advisable to isolate the baby from his mother and put his favorite toy next to him.
So how to wean a baby from a bottle? For each mom, this process is individual. For some children, it is painless, while for others it is full of tears and tantrums. And each mother needs to find her own approach to her child so that everything goes as painlessly as possible.