My daughter is going to be 1 next week and seems to have regressed when it comes to drinking anything other than her formula from a bottle! She has 6oz formula from a bottle at breakfast time, the rest goes on her weetabix and she hapily feeds herself with the bottle. She also has 6 - 8 oz formula at bedtime which she also feeds herself. During the daytime, she has had a beaker since around 6 months and has cooled boiled water in it. I have tried giving her all sorts of squash, fruit juice and baby juice in various flavours and she refuses to drink them. She's now decided she's not keen on the water either and barely drinks a drop some days. On a good day she may have 3 or 4 oz throughout the entire day. This doesn't seem enough to me and her nappies are never very wet except first thing in the morning. How much does she need in a day? Should I start giving her formula throughout the day again? Should I persevere with the water/juice? I tried her with cows milk this evening but she still only sipped at it! Any ideas please? Thanks.xxx

You could try something called a Doidy cup which is basically a slanted cup which makes drinking liquid much easier for babies and gets them used to drinking from a cup not a bottle. The novelty of drinking out of something different might do the trick. Alternatively, you could give her a cup of water or juice and call it milk or whatever you normally call her formula milk. Some babies won't be fooled by this, but we call water 'juice' at home and my toddler drinks her 'juice' happily probably not realising that she is drinking water. Also with the cow's milk, are you warming it slightly? The other thing that might work is to warm the water or juice she is drinking. If she is used to warm formula, she may not like cool water or cool juice from the fridge. See if she prefers it slightly warmed up - the same goes for cow's milk.

Try giving her some juice in a small bottle watered down, just so that she can get used to the juice. Once she is happy with that, try and introduce the beaker back and see how she goes. Also I recommend at this age to still give a milk bottle in the afternoon, at around 3.00pm and then give her some water with her supper at 5.00pm. Lots of babies at this age won't take juice or water, so don't worry as long as she is having three bottles of milk and now and again juice or water. As time goes on she will take more. Also check the beaker - it may be that she finds it hard to suck from the cup, so check it yourself to see how easily it comes out. Sometimes this can be one reason for not drinking through the beaker. There is a cup called a Sippy cup, which is more like a bottle than a cup as the liquid is extracted from it. Give it a try, but as long as she gets 3 bottles of milk a day and try the juice in a Sippy cup or small bottle then she will be fine.