Bye-Bye Bottles, Zebra (Hello Genius)

My two year old was always a horrible sleeper, waking up many, many times a night and would NOT go to sleep without milk, so whenever he would wake up, he would *need* to drink more and more milk, usually three or more bottles a night! oh my god. Though I don't credit this book completely, it has been a KEY ingredient to the recipe that has finally, over the course of only a couple of weeks, allowed him to sleep all the way through the night, without milk. I really didn't care if he drank it during the day, though I wanted him to eat more solid foods - and this book not only helped stop the overnight bottles, he also stopped being so dependent on milk bottles during the day! The big zebra imagery just really clicks for him - he loves reading the book and gets the concept. The other day, he tripped and cried for a second, and before he would just cry "milk, milk" until we got him a bottle and he would drink it for .5 seconds just for comfort, but this time he picked himself up, and with an adorable pouty face, wiped his eyes and said "i'm a big zebra" :') Buy this book!!!

When we decided to nix the bottle, I bought this book. I picked it over the Sesame Street one because it was shorter and simpler (my 3 year old has a short attention span). She followed along with the reading, answering “Nooooo” when the mamá zebra offered a bottle to the baby zebra. I also purchased two straw non-spill cups with her favorite cartoons on them, which she was excited to use. It’s been a month and a half and she no longer asks for a bottle!

TL;DR - My toddler loves books and really takes in the messages in children’s books about behavior, so this book worked for us. Seeing the main character use her sippy/big kid cup really encouraged my toddler to give up her bottle. ———————- I have been trying to get my toddler to drink milk out of a cup since she was about 8-9 months. She was perfectly capable of and fine with drinking water from any type of cup but when it came to milk, she would take a sip from the cup and immediately spit out the milk every single time. I gave up on bottle weaning for a bit and focused on potty training. I decided to try the Diapers are Not Forever book. She loved that book and it really encouraged her to potty train. After the book (and getting fabric potty training underwear), she was potty trained in a few days. From that success, I tried searching for a children’s book about bottle weaning and this zebra book was pretty much one of the only ones. I was hesitant about the main character being a zebra instead of a child but my daughter loved the book and she decided to give her straw cup of milk a shot. The bottle spell was finally over at 21 months (better late than never)! The only thing I don’t like about the story is that in one part, the zebra physically throws/or slaps away her bottle. I would have preferred if she threw the bottle away in the trash, not just throw/slap it randomly in the air. My daughter loves to imitate so I explained to her that the bottle was being thrown in the trash, even though the picture shows it sailing in the air with no real target. Also, my daughter kept saying the Z in the cover is a 7 since the bottom of the letter is blocked by the Zebra. I had to P-touch a blank label over it to make it look more like a Z.

Short and cute. Daughter likes it enough to ask for repeat reading. The story is Zebra's mom asking Zebra if they want a bottle at different times of day and Zebra replying no, I'm using my sippy cup.

Darling book! Our granddaughter loved it! It's well made and it a cute story. 5 stars and 2 thumbs up!

I’m trying REALLY hard to get my 2.5 year old off his bottle for naps and bed. It’s HARD, and I wish I’d known sooner how tough this habit would be to break. He doesn’t use pacifiers or suck his thumb, so this is his one last “baby habit” that needs to be broken before we can start potty training. I know what you’re thinking…. But he has sleep issues and his team of therapists has always said we’d get to the bottle later! I’ve tried cold turkey but he won’t sleep, I’ve tried every cup out there, etc. He LOVES this book and asks to read it all day. It’s super simple and not very long, but that’s OK: it gets the point across. He has a speech delay but picked up “NO MORE BOTTLE” after reading this for one day! I think this might actually work. The only thing I don’t like is how they show zebra THROWING the bottle. Please…. Throw it in the garbage! Or hand it back to Mommy….. but don’t throw it. 🤦🏻‍♀️ Planning on buying a sippy that looks exactly like the one Zebra uses, if I can find one! I’ll update when we get off the bottle for good. Hope this helps!

This book is cute but these parent either have kids ready to give up their bottles or they are lying about their successes. $7 wasnt much to spend on trying but the message has yet to register with my 22month old twins. My kids love the book but I'm giving it 3 stars because I don't want other parents to think it's a miracle worker.

My daughter is almost 2. Still on the bottle. We read it together, she threw out her bottle herself and was able to pick out a teddy bear to replace it with instead. She then also made the grand gesture and drank her milk out of her big kid cup. And I can’t believe she understood it so well and made so many grand gestures at once. Highly reccomend. This transition is the one I have been dreading most!

Book delivered with a straight impact dent on the top edge. The box was undamaged. Front cover also seems to have some glue residue on it along with (possibly) some dried sauce. The return process looks to be more effort than the book is worth, plus we need the book now for training

Worked wonders!

This is a great book going to keep reading this to encourage the lost interest in bottles going forward!

Purchased for my 19 month old. Read it and then he asked me to read it 2 more times back-to-back. I told him he was a big boy, just like zebra, and showed him his new big kid cups. I also showed him I was throwing out his baby bottles (except I snuck them back in later and hid them for his future sibling.) I let him choose the sippy cup of his choice for milk, but he knows there are no more bottles. Going cold turkey really worked for us. I plan on doing the same for the pacifier. I already bought that one and the big kid bed from the same author for the next milestones. Hoping they work just as well, but I think if parents stick to the plan, everything will pan out.

I have recently been reading this book before bed.