Suri is shown with a bottle on 1/14/08, thanks to WENN. Sippy cup photos are available at PopSugar
Ashlee Simpson got married, Heidi and Seal are getting remarried, Angelina Jolie showed off her pregnancy ta-ta’s– so what! The real story of the weekend was a photograph of Scientolospawn Suri Cruise, clutching both her trademark bottle and- wait for it- a sippy cup!
Looks like Katie Holmes is taking Usmagazine.com’s parenting advice!
Her two-year-old daughter Suri was spotted in Hollywood yesterday with both a sippy cup and a bottle!
After the tot was spotted sucking on a bottle in NYC last week, a pediatrician told Us that she was far too old for that habit.
“Most pediatricians recommend a bottle should be given up by age 1 — almost certainly by 18 months,” Dr. Charlotte Cowan, author of the Dr. Hippo book series, told Us.
To help Suri move on, Cowan suggested the couple try “to “distract [her] with something that might be more appealing, like a sippy cup.”
Also possibly distracting Tom Cruise’s daughter? Dance lessons! Suri sported mini tap shoes after taking a class with mom on Thursday.
(Suri seems to be into performing: Holmes revealed she loves American Idol and her dad said Hairspray was her favorite video!)
We’ve been on “Suri Bottle Watch” for months now. We were nearing code red- it looked like we may have another Leah Remini situation brewing with the superstar toddler. Tom and Katie are rumored to be trying for another baby- which may explain the sudden interest in getting Suri weaned. As a mom of two daughters and a dtepmom to two sons, I have the following advice for Katie: the best way to get Suri off the bottle is to remove it completely. Out of sight, out of mind is the way to go- especially with little kids. As long as the bottle is somewhere accessible in the house, she’s going to keep asking for it. And when she drinks from the cup, praise, praise, praise!
Meanwhile, the WHO recommends breastfeeding until age 2. There’s lots of advice out there that, on the surface at least, seems contradictory–or at least not fully explained and contextualized. I’m not disputing that 2 is old for bottle use (certainly with this frequency), but taken piecemeal, it’s no wonder that lots of people are confused. Add in the strictures of Scientology, and it gets even messier.
I say breastfeeding should end when bottle feeding ends, soon after their first birthday.
Breastfeeding doesn’t damage the teeth the way bottle-feeding does. The female breast is not made of rubber, and breastmilk is far more beneficial to a child’s physical and mental development than formula, or whatever concoction is in Suri’s bottles. It’s well documented that the longer a child breastfeeds, the better off he or she is. Age two seems perfectly reasonable, as long as it’s being supplemented with healthy foods. Whatever Suri’s drinking can’t possibly be healthy for her, so the bottle itself is what she’s attached to. I agree with MSat – take the bottle away and let her cry for a night or two. She’ll get the picture and move on before the parents know it.
Should have been introduced to the sippy cup by the age of 9 months, and once she handled it well, the bottle should have disappeared.
This kid seems awfully tall for only 2 years, especially considering the vertically challenged man who is supposed to be her father.
And, does the idea of Tom and Kat(i)e trying for a baby give anyone else the skeevies?
To me, it’s not the rotting teeth issue. I phased my children off bottle and breast once they were successfully transistioned to milk and solid food. Mommy nor the bottle are snack dispensers or a method of comfort. (at least not the breast or bottle. There are no age limits on hugs or sympathy)
Maybe if I lived in an underdeveloped nation where nutritional needs were harder to meet, I would continue breast feeding until two. I daresay that’s where WHO came up with their age.
Yep, but the rotting teeth SHOULD be an issue too. I made a huge mistake with my third…this kid was the first and only son, born 7 years later than the sister nearest his age, three miscarriages between them (i.e., spoiled rotten), and I was going through a divorce and thought he needed the comfort. So I let him go to bed with his bottle until he was 2 1/2. He developed a nice line of decay all along the gum line on all his teeth. I can’t begin to tell you the dental bills, not to mention the misery it caused him.
Neural development is greatly aided by breast milk, and continues at an astounding pace until the kid is a few years old. There really is just no substitute for a mother’s milk, and my wife was pumping until my daughter was 16 months old or so.
Now, the delivery system is up for debate, because pacifiers and bottle nipples are HORRID for the teeth, causing them to come in at funny angles and compounding any natural overcrowding. That being said, I think it’s unwise to say the least to cut milk out of any child’s diet, regardless of the vegan lobby’s bullshit about it being unnatural.
If you’re breastfeeding, I’d say it’s fine to continue until the child is 2 or so. The problem with bottles is that they tend to gnaw on them even after they’re done drinking, and you don’t have that problem if they’re drinking directly from the breast.
To be honest though, if the choice is between messed up teeth and an underdeveloped child, I’ll choose messed up teeth.
Better late than never, and certainly better than trying to fight the bottle battle with a new baby in the house.
I’d second the above advice of going cold turkey on the bottle paired with lots of praise for using a cup. I almost understand why they let her keep the bottle so long, from the minute the world found out Katie was preggers, any chance that kid had at a normal life was shot all to hell. Other two year olds get to go to the park or the zoo or daycare and do normal kid stuff – Suri goes to five star restaraunts and Broadway shows. Poor girl has to be a little grown up most of the time, no wonder she’s clinging to the bottle.
“Breastfeeding doesn’t damage the teeth the way bottle-feeding does. The female breast is not made of rubber, and breastmilk is far more beneficial to a child’s physical and mental development than formula, or whatever concoction is in Suri’s bottles.”
There’s a fairly simple connect-the-dots thing here that never seems to happen, though, and that’s my point. The public just gets pieces of information without context–and based on what I’ve heard from new mothers, the information they get isn’t necessarily a lot clearer.
Do ppl not have ANYTHING else to worry about other than at what age someone ELSE’S child gives up a bottle? I can guarantee she won’t go to college with it so what’s the big deal? Jeez! She’ll give it up when SHE’S ready..not when the world thinks it’s time!
Children have individual needs, not one is like the other. A good parent knows how to read a child and his or her needs.Breastfeeding and bottle-feeding are a necessary part of an infant and of a toddler’s life. To have the superficial attitude to tailor everything according to somebody else’s timetable and so called learned opinion is NOT good parenting.
I’m with you, bella. To all those who think their word is holy writ: You don’t know the circumstances behind the decisions people make, so take your unsolicited advice and choke on it.
IMO, everybody is too rigid and uptight about when to get rid of bottles and such. All 3 of my kids continued to have bottles when they were 3 and into their 4th year at grandmas house. They had binkies until they were 3 or 4. They started using the potty around 2, but weren’t using the potty regularly until they were 3 or 4. I have 3 healthy children, who have never had a cavity or tooth problem and are doing just fine. RELAX…..and your kids will too.
Thank you for your parent-smart and very supportive input . The world and especially the States will be a much healthier place for our children if we are heard and our expertise is honored.
I agree that you shouldn’t put kids on a timetable or tell other parents how to raise their kids.
Before I had my son, my mind was made up as to how things were going to be. No pacifier, no co-sleeping etc. But you know, once he came, everything changed. He sleeps with us almost every night and is addicted to his pacifier. You do what works for you and your family. Don’t judge another parent using some generic time table. There are bigger things to worry about than having an over bite for sucking your thumb and I doubt they’d let her go as far as to let her teeth rot. Worry about her coming home pregnant, or driving drunk or using narcotics..those are bigger concerns.
“coming home pregnant, or driving drunk or using narcotics..those are bigger concerns”…in a distant future! As moms I think we learn how to worry even more about the littlest things in the world..and how they affect our children!
Of course you do whetever is best for you now, we all tend to go through the easy way out and cope with things so we just don´t need to stress about it…but to me that´s exactly what separates MOTHERS from the rest of humanity. Btw, I don´t mean stress in a freaky controlling way…
But the easy way, is not alway the best! Those little things we miss out add up and tend to become a certain pattern of behavior, which may lead to more serious issues.
At the end of the day we just can´t forget that we are not raising our children for ourselves and just go and do whatever it works better for us.
I am not referring to the sippy cup of course 😆
But in a more complex scenario!
I am not saying to let them run your household..I’m merely saying
those things are so small. It’s not easier for me that my son sleeps with us..it’s better for him too..he sleeps better. How dare you insinuate that I or any other parent who doesn’t sweat over the small stuff is doing for pure convenience? It was implied in my previous post that obviously if it starts affecting my child’s well-being then of course I’ll make the necessary changes.
I know there are plenty of people who believes a child will give up bottle feeding ,breast feeding, pacifier, diapers, etc when they are ready. I,for one don’t buy that argument.Look A Leah Remini daughter! Four years old and drinking more bottles at night than a newborn. Have any one seen Extraordinary BreastFeeding which aired in England? Well, this mom also believed that her children should decide for themselves when they should stop breastfeeding. Needless to say her 8 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER WAS STILL BREASTFEEDING! The girl was huge and the image of the mom nursing this 8 year old, to me at least, was disturbing. Mom had no plan of stopping.
When do a parent draw the line?
How dare you??
What is your problem? How dare you be insulted because you read too much into a post? Oversensative much? The poster said “to me” i.e her opinion, just like every one else’s.
Get some sleep and stop thinking the whole world is dogging you out as a parent.
my daughter still has a bottle before bedtime at night and she is 18 months. i asked the doctor and he said it was fine. so i dont know what usweekly is talking about.
Its positively repulsive to see a 7 or 8 year old child breastfeeding.
I agree that the Leah Remini thing was WAY over the top, and disturbing to watch – they obviously had no authority in their own home, and the quality of all of their lives were affected by what was going on. I think it’s often difficult as a parent to judge when to draw the line between not trying to force the end of a stage before the child is ready or able, and letting it go to far. But, I have erred on the side of trusting my own instincts, and since I am not a pushover type of mom, it has served my children very well. I feel it helped them be more secure as people to not be pushed so hard through developmental stages.
and EWWWWWWW on the breastfeeding at 8 years old thing. Totally wrong. imo.
EVERY child is different. I have three, no two were the same. My oldest wouldn’t look at a toilet until he was three, but walked by 11 mos. and quit the bottle/breast at one year. My second wouldn’t take a step until she was 15 months old (so small and cute, we carried her everywhere, probably our fault). My youngest rejected the breast at 9 months (talk about rejection) tolerated a bottle for one month and ditched it for a sippy cup at 10 mos. The youngest was also toilet trained at 18 months. He tried in every way to be like his older brother and sister. EVERY child is different and the age at which they do ANYTHING is typically determined by parents giving options first, and the child’s will to explore the options, second. I suppose next we’ll be on Tom and Katie for keeping her in diapers too long. As for having a child sleep with the parents…to each his own, but I will say that if you open that door and welcome your child into your bed, you’d better have and implement a solid exit plan and be willing to endure the separation anxiety that comes with moving them into their own bed at a later date. It’s probably one of the toughest battles. In my opinion, you’re better off sleeping in their bed occasionally rather than inviting them into your own. There’s no right or wrong way, just what works best for each family
oh no stop the presses LOL. Is this really that big of a deal? I have 4 kids and this isnt really a big deal imo. Some kids actually just use it for comfort just like some kids do that with teddy bears , or blankies etc.
I agree with everyone who says people shouldnt tell others how to parent,
so all I have to say is stick that in your juice box and suck it LOL 🙂
And while everyone is not telling anyone else how to parent, perhaps we can lay off the Jolie-Pitts, too?
HAHA!! Syko, you rock!
wonder if she still wears diapers ? Those Scientology freaks really needa learn how to raise kids .
those wacko scientologists give kids barley in the bottle. Like in booze.
When this kid needs a shrink, they wont let her have one 😐 🙁