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Midwife told me to stop at 6 months. But that was 10 years ago. Could you ring and ask? Sorry thats not much help really

Bottles always need sterilising (yucky teat and lots of bits that can get icky).
Cups do not need sterilising, and you can make up milk in them in exactly the same way.

.... I am DYING to get the Mavettes drinking out of cups!

My HV said that as long as they get 20oz of milk a day then great. O's feeds have gone a bit weird now we're on the weaning, as in she still wants a milk feed but not the whole 6oz, and then sometimes she'll have the lot. So I keep all the bottles till the end of the day so I can tot it all up.

Ditto what Mavis said about the sterilising, I'd read that they still need to be sterilised due to all the bits. And formula does need to be made up the same way.

Mavis, I'm going to try get a handle for the bottle so that she can give herself her bottle, and then once she's got the hang of that I'm gonna try move away from a teat to a proper cup. I tried with a cup and she held it and put it in her mouth but wasn't impressed.

the others have answered your questions about sterilising. One thing, though, if you use cups that have a valve in rather than free flowing ones for milk, then why wouldn't they need sterilising? Just as many places for germs to breed as with teats I would have thought? But that is just me pondering rather than knowing.

Yes, I believe bottles do have a lifespan but not sure what it is and I guess it will depend on how many you own / rotate etc but if you think they are looking a bit past it then you are probably right!

As to how many feeds, well, like all things it will depend on the baby and also when they have their sold feeds. Most will begin to drop feeds but some will just take less at each feed.
A lot of the babies I know where able to hold their bottles (Tommee Tippee ones without handles) by about 6 1/2 months so you'll probably find your babies will soon catch on.

xx

I'm finding the girls do better drinking out of an open cup (e.g. Doidy) than a sippy cup (which they try and suck rather than sip).
So we are doing lots of drinking water out of the Doidy... watch this space!

Botttles - not sure, but the teat is the most important thing and you've just replaced yours so all should be good :-)

How have you got the girls to drink water??? O just looks at me like I'm trying to poison her!

Quoted from "JENSQUI"

One thing, though, if you use cups that have a valve in rather than free flowing ones for milk, then why wouldn't they need sterilising? Just as many places for germs to breed as with teats I would have thought? But that is just me pondering rather than knowing.

You're right Jen, if the cups use the valves then they do need sterilising (and they have small rubbery bits, so its a pain).

Quoted from "Flic"

How have you got the girls to drink water??? O just looks at me like I'm trying to poison her!

Not a way I can recommend... I think they are thirsty! They gulp the water down and will only eat solids after drinking water.

M will now drink out of several different types of cup but to begin with I used a doidy cup (which she lapped up water from like a kitten) and a 'think baby' bottle that had a soft spout. Sometimes they don;t like the hard spout.

x

Maybe thats why she doesn't like it then. I'll have to get one and give it a try. Thanks Jen!

I've been trying to get the moonlets onto sippy cups and holding ther own bottles - Molly is getting the hang of it quite well, but Georgie is a bit lazy and loses concentration after a minute or two!! Sippy cups are a bit like a toy at the moment, they will drink from them even though the teat is hard and flat but it took some getting used to - but to get a decent amount of water in them I'll give it to them in a bottle after each solid feed and if they're looking hot during the day. Mine get quite grizzly if they're hot and thirsty!

When you first start weaning keep all the milk feeds as normal, as to start with they'll take very little solids. It's up to you whether you give solids before milk, during milk, straight after milk or between feeds - whichever fits in with your lifestyle and the Dufflets. They will fall into a natural pattern of how much milk they'll take. With M&G I feed them 4 hourly (6,10,2,6) and now they also have porridge at 8 followed by nap, dinner and pud at 11.30 followed by nap and tea at 4. Now weaning is fully established they are taking around 6oz (180ml) per feed which is about average for their age (7 months). As Flic's LO sometimes they drink all of it, sometimes not. I don't worry if they don't take it all though, it doesn't seem to affect their sleep or mood and they're definately gaining weight!!


I'm an advocate of not reading books and just going by instinct - your babies will know what they want and you'll know what you can easily achieve!

xx

Sounds sensible if you think it'll work for you and the Dufflets!

I stopped sterilising EVERYTHING when both girls were 1, literally over night! However, E had a bottle at night til she was gone 2, and A is still doing that, and I'm not sterilising them. Bottles/teats have a lifespan - not sure how long I just change them when they start to look a bit worse for wear!

Cups - both girls around 7/8 months I guess although I used to also have a bottle of water to hand to start with so that I knew they could have that if they were thirsty but struggling with the cup.

The afternoon milk will be the first one to go - I think that had gone by 6 months for A (can't remember for E!) and then it'll be the 11.30 one. I have a feeling A dropped those at more or less the same time although she took to food really quickly/easily (her mother's daughter?!) so wasn't interested in milk much after she'd tasted food and always looked a bit disappointed at a bottle. Having said that she still really enjoys her bedtime bottle!

And finally - I always offered milk before food, like you're planning to as I knew both girls would ditch the milk and head straight for the grub when they saw it!

Good luck and have fun! Have fond memories of a production line in my kitchen making purees, little meals for the freezer etc - I did a combo of finger food and spoon fed - too neurotic to leave it all to them - needed to know that at least something was going in!!! And I still make fruit purees now actually as the girls like them with plain yoghurt, sometimes over ice cream etc or sometimes on their own instead of a yoghurt!

x

Yes, you'll find that very useful! We had a cat until a couple of months ago ( ) and he was very good at tidying up certain things - chicken, cheese, yoghurt - not so good at others - banana, biscuit, ricecake. I would imagine your two doggies won't be quite so picky!

Hi DM

I am planning on sterilising bottles until around 1 year, but go with the flow I guess depending on how she takes to a cup.

My DD is good and can indepentantly hold her own bottle, I started by letting her grip my finger and then moving it next to the bottle so her hands were getting used to being in the right place IYKWIM. I have tried her with several cups for water but the only one she can master is a Nuby first cup, it has handles at the side and a soft spout so similar to a teat feel but shaped like a spout.

In terms of milk she still has 4 feeds a day, wake up, 10.30am, 2.30pm and bed, all 6oz except bed which is 8oz, she does seem to be cutting this down slightly though by not taking the full bottle in the day. Solid wise she has breakfast, dinner and tea now. I guess they are all different with what they want but I do just tend to follow her lead as she generally seems to get it right.

xx for the gorgeous Dufflets! xx

I forgot to reply to all your questions!

L was breast-fed but I wanted to stop when he was one and to do this I've moved him to bottles of formula. I stopped sterilising a few days after L turned one as the advice I've had was that you had to sterilise for 1 year only. I make up the formula with cooled boiled water. However, I'm now moving him over to cows' milk (just using up the formula) and once we've done that (next week I would imagine) we'll then transition to using a doidy and/or beaker (both of which he's fine with already, only he associates them with water, not milk, at the mo).

I don't know about managing the reduction in milk. As L was demand fed I didn't pay much attention to how often he fed (other than knowing he fed a LOT more frequently than any other baby I know!). Also, we did BLW and the idea with that is that you go with the flow in terms of how much, solids-wise, they eat because you just make up the difference with milk feeds. So if he ate plenty he'd want less milk; if he wasn't so hungry he'd take more milk, iykwim. Over time he just reduced how often he wanted milk, and now we're down to 2 feeds, one about 150ml and the other about 100ml.

If you want to be more proactive about it and take control over cutting out feeds yourself then I guess you have to work harder to make sure they eat enough solids.

Does any of that help?!