Just five minutes of advice from a baby's doctor or pediatrician can act as a big influence on when parents wean their babies from the bottle, new Canadian research has found.
The study found that when parents are advised at their baby's nine-month checkup about how to begin weaning their baby off the bottle and on to the sippy cup, a huge portion of them will have successfully weaned their child by age two compared to those parents not so counselled.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that all toddlers stop using a baby bottle by 15 months. Yet many parents are not aware of this, and many continue bottle feeding well past that time.
Research has shown that almost 40 per cent of children are still bottle-fed at age two. By age three, 16 per cent of kids are still using a bottle and eight per cent at age four.
But the longer a child uses a bottle, the more likely it is they will take in too much milk. Research has shown a link between bottle feeding beyond the age of 16 months and iron deficiency, as well as the risk of dental problems.
Most parents whose kids still use the bottle after age two say it was because the child preferred the bottle over the sippy cup. But St. Michael's pediatrician Dr. Jonathan Maguire notes that the older a child is, the harder it becomes to make the switch.
"It needs to be done at a younger age when children's behaviour is more easily modified," he said in a news release.
So, for his study, Maguire asked three pediatricians in downtown Toronto to see whether their advice helped parents of about 250 babies to wean their children sooner.
For half of the families, the doctors offered the usual advice at the nine-month checkup, including information on introducing solid foods and limiting intake of juice.
The other parents were given the same advice along with specific information about the risks of prolonged bottle use. They were told to limit the child's milk intake to 500 ml daily and to practise using a sippy cup.
The researchers found that children whose parents received the extra counselling started using the sippy cup three months earlier – at nine months instead of 12 months of age on average.
The children were also weaned completely from the bottle at 12 months instead of 16 months, on average.
The researchers say their study is good evidence that parents will heed the advice of their doctors.
"If physicians counsel parents of young infants about the dangers of prolonged bottle use and when to stop using the bottle, the counseling actually works," said Maguire, whose research appears in the current issue of Pediatrics.
"This shows it's possible for health professionals to positively influence the health behaviour of young children before they develop unhealthy habits and will hopefully lead to healthier children and healthier adults that they become."
While toddlers are advised to drink about 500 ml of milk a day, too much milk can make it more difficult for the body to absorb iron from other foods. As well, the extra calories from the milk can leave children uninterested in eating other iron-rich foods.
Iron deficiency occurs in about 30 per cent of Ontario toddlers.
It's associated with developmental delays, behavioural problems and poorer school achievement.
