How I Weaned Isabella Off Pacifiers & Bottles

Once your baby turns 1, it’s almost as if they’ve crossed that magical threshold, the one where they’re no longer a baby, but also not quite a toddler. You know the one, the one where they all of a sudden want to run and walk and climb, they want to feed themselves and do everything they see everyone else doing. Yeah, that one. 

Well it turns out Bella crossed that threshold way before she even turned one. And I guess that’s to be expected, seeing as she has 3 older brothers to look up to. So it should come as no surprise when I say, I weaned Bella off of pacifiers and bottles before she turned 13 months!! 🎉 

Now who wants in on my secret?! Lol

So first things first, I should probably disclose that Bella started weaning herself off of pacifiers around 10 months. And what I mean by that is, we stopped taking her pacifiers with us on outings and left her pacifier in her crib throughout the day. The only times she’d use her pacifier was at nap time and bedtime. That’s it. So when she turned 1, I informed her that we will no longer be using pacifiers anymore, that they’re for babies. She laughed of course and I figured she didn’t understand what I meant because obviously she just turned one lol so a few days later, she surprised me at bedtime by throwing her pacifier out of her crib before laying down. I thought she just wanted to play, so I gave it back to her. She then threw it back out so I left it there and she went to sleep without it. The next day, she did the same thing again at nap time and bedtime. After that, I stopped offering her the pacifier and she hasn’t used it since! So we most definitely stopped using the pacifier about a week after she turned 1. 

Now onto the bottle weaning. For this, I started Bella on a spoutless cup, we use the Munchkin 360 cup, and we’d only use it for water at the beginning. We first introduced this cup to her two weeks before she turned 1 just so she would get used to the cup. We continued to use it everyday for water only, until we had completely weaned her off of formula. Once she was on regular milk, I introduced her to the 360 cup with milk instead of her normal bottle. Honestly, she was a little confused and not too happy about this change lol but by the next day, she was good. Ever since then, she has been using her 360 cups for milk without a problem. I’d say she’s been weaned off of bottles since 12 1/2 months. 

Now, this is my secret of how I weaned Isabella and all the boys off of pacifiers & bottles. Isabella learned the quickest of course and Isaiah took the longest. This method may or may not work for you, as every kid is different, but I wish all of you mamas the best of luck. If you try my method, let me know how it works for you! Or if you have a different method, drop it down in the comments section so other mamas can learn your ways too. 

Until next time,

XO Mama Unfiltered 🖤