to give the bottle; if from the tenth to the twelfth month the infant
should be taught to drink or be fed with a spoon.

_How may some of the difficulties in weaning be overcome?_

By feeding every nursing infant once a day or by giving it water
regularly from a feeding-bottle. It then becomes accustomed to the
bottle. This is a matter of great convenience during the whole period
of nursing when the mother or nurse is from necessity away from the
child for a few hours; when more feeding is required at weaning time
the child does not object.

_When should a child be weaned from the bottle?_

With children who are not ill, weaning from the bottle should
invariably be begun at the end of the first year, and after a child is
thirteen or fourteen months old the bottle should not be given except
at the night feeding.

_Is there any objection to the child's taking the bottle until it is
two or three years old?_

There are no advantages and some serious objections. Older children
often become so attached to the bottle that only with the greatest
difficulty can they be made to give it up. Frequently they will refuse
all solid food, and will take nothing except from the bottle so long
as it is given, and when finally at three or four years, it is taken
away, they will not touch milk during the rest of their childhood. The
difficulty is here that children form the "bottle habit." This habit
is troublesome, unnecessary, and should by all means be prevented. An