How to Deal with your Baby's Sad Feelings During Bottle Weaning

By Jacqueline Harris

The bottle is not just for nourishment; the baby receives an emotional, social and even a cognitive benefit from the interaction between satisfying needs and the bottle. Weaning a baby from this attachment to the bottle is a process. The process involves replacing the bottle as the object of physical, emotional, social and cognitive satisfaction with the cup.

The process involves replacing the quantity of milk consumed with solid foods, the love and nurturing closeness experienced at bottle feeding times with an equally satisfying intimate time during mealtimes without the bottle.

Most childcare experts will agree that the process of weaning is best accomplished if done gradually sometime between the ages of 12 months and 24 months. The time is determined by the child's readiness to begin the process. The child gives clues to this readiness by gaining the physical ability to control finger muscles to pick up food, to transfer to his or her mouth and also to hold the handles of a sippy cup.

The adult doing the weaning will most likely withdraw from using the bottle and substitute using the sippy cup instead. It is wise to allow the baby or toddler to drink from the bottle if the demands are made and it is clear that the child is suffering emotionally by the absence of the bottle. Feelings of sadness are normal in life, but the process of weaning should not be traumatic for the baby or for the adults in the household. Weaning should be a gradual and natural experience that the child and adult are ready to experience in all aspects: physical, emotional, socially and cognitively.

The weaning from bottle to cup should not be a hostile take-over. The bottle should be replaced in a gradual loving manner that will be easy on the child and the adults.

Weaning a toddler can be especially trying and sad for a child who has become attached to the bottle. One habit that aids in this attachment is allowing a toddler to carry a bottle around with them and "nursing" the bottle when needed. This becomes a "security bottle" and is very difficult to separate or replace this security object, as the child grows older.

If your verbal toddler or child becomes sad during the weaning process you can have a one-on-one chat with them as ask them to tell you or to draw a picture of how they feel about the bottle and the cup. Sometimes the process is stalled by something like milk temperature, the fear that the milk will taste different in the cup then what it tastes like from the bottle. These reasons for fear or sadness can then be addressed and progress can then be made towards a successful weaning.