Transition to Sippy Cup?? Milk? Ounces?

[tattlebaby]

HEy I've missed you guys...been away caring for baby and all. So Much! THey literally turn your world around don't they . And now I'm back in on another transition…The Sippy Cup..Lol. I have 3 questions for you mamas. LO is now almost 16 months old and continues to be breast fed alongside her solids. I'll be returning back to work soon and looking how to go about this transition. I've always pumped at work in order to leave bottles of breast milk for the next day for her nanny. While I'm away her nanny warms her bottles and gives them to her. Unfortunately, because I would have to pretty much introduce another form of milk soon…

1. Should I first offer it to her in her usual bottle or transition straight to the sippy cup?

2. What type of milk did you transition to and why? Only because I've read some interesting takes on why some moms choose to bypass cows milk..(please share your thoughts).

3. Do you continue to offer your 2nd choice of milk warm or cold? And how many ounces a day?

 

[MindUtopia]

I personally would probably change one thing at a time, moving to milk and offering in a bottle until she's used to it, or moving to using a cup with expressed milk until she gets the hang of how it works. For milk, we use a straw cup, which I think works better as they don't have to hold it tipped back for long periods of time (which is hard to do for little arms to start). Once you're happy that one adjustment has gone well, then I'd start working on the other.

We use regular whole cow's milk. It's what we drink in our family anyway and my daughter doesn't have any CMPI or issues with dairy, so I don't see the point of using some special expensive milk that we don't already buy. She took to cow's milk well. It's affordable (they go through a lot of milk as toddlers!). It's also easy to buy at our local shop without driving far away to a bigger or specialist shop.

We offer it however she wants it. For bedtime, I always warm it. If she has milk at other times during the day, it's usually cold, unless she asks to have it warmed. Initially though, I probably would have warmed it all the time. We kept the amounts the same. As you are already offering expressed milk in bottles, you should have some idea of how much she drinks. I'd offer exactly the same and see what she does. At 16 months, we were mostly only having milk before bed (about 210-250 ml), and occasionally, she might also have had a cup (about 180-210 ml) before breakfast or with an afternoon snack, but not every day. The recommendation here is about 500 ml of milk/dairy a day for toddlers, but it doesn't have to all be as a drink. We use it in porridge (oatmeal), cold cereal, or she'll have a yogurt or cheese as a snack, etc.