transitioning from bottles to sippy cups

Our boys will be 11 months tomorrow. They can already drink from a sippy cup, but so far have just gotten water that way. I'm wondering when I should start transitioning them from bottle to sippy cup for formula/milk? Should I wait until a year when they switch off of formula? Did you all start with one bottle and slowly switch a few ounces at a time or one bottle at a time, or go cold turkey off bottles all at once? Right now they get a bottle at 6:30am and breakfast around 8am....so once we switch off bottles, do I just give them their breakfast first thing??

Thanks for any insight!

ETA: They get three bottles a day, if it matters - 6:30am, 11am, and 6:45pm.

 

We switched at 11 months. They were also at 3 bottles a day. I did cold turkey 1 bottle at a time. I just moved meal times up and gave them their sippy with milk in it. We lost the "lunch" bottle first, then morning, then bedtime. My boys were never good bottle drinkers so they didn't miss them one bit! Just remember they may not drink as much milk right away so just load them up with cheese and yogurt too to get the protein in them Remember as they get closer to 1 they rely on a variety of foods to help them grow, not just milk anymore...their diet becomes just like ours Good luck!

 

I was thinking about starting with the lunch bottle first, too. Unfortunately, they are dairy and soy intolerant, so they can't have yogurt or cheese yet - they are on Nutramigen formula, and unless our "test" with yogurt and soy in a couple of weeks goes well, they will be going to rice milk with a multi-vitamin at a year old. However, they are getting more than enough formula - Michael gets 24 oz. and Gabriel gets 22 oz. and the pedi said they could go as low as 16 oz. as long as they are happy.

Anyway, I think I'm going to jump in this week and try it....I just can't decide if I want to do cold-turkey, or do half a bottle and half in the sippy cup or something like that. They love their bottles, so I'm afraid they may be unhappy with me if I do it all at once! :laughing:

 

We started offering with our older children when they started solids (so around 9 months and 11 months) every time we fed them they got a sippy cup. Once they were good at getting their water out of the sippy we got rid of the bottles.

 

Okay, here is our current schedule:

6:30ish - bottle
8:15 - breakfast
11am - bottle
12:30pm - lunch
3ish - snack (cut up fruit and mum-mum usually)
5pm - dinner
6:45pm - bottle

So if I cut out the 11am bottle and instead do sippy cup, I would make their lunch earlier, right? Or should I keep their lunch the same and add a mid-morning snack? (I like their lunch being late honestly, because I tend to go out mid-morning, plus on Sundays, they can eat after we get back from church).

The other question is, I doubt they will drink all the formula they were getting at 11am with their lunch (7.5 oz for Mike and 6.5 oz. for Gabe) Maybe I should divide what was in that bottle up and give them some at breakfast, some with lunch, and some with their snack?? So here is what I'm thinking - anyone have feedback on this:

6:30am - bottle
8:15am - breakfast
10am - snack and sippy (fruit or veg for now - yogurt when they outgrow their dairy intolerance, which we are testing in a few weeks)
12:30pm - lunch and sippy
3ish - snack (fruit and mum-mum) and sippy
5pm - dinner
6:45pm - bottle

I hope this makes sense....I'm still sorting it all out in my head, too!!