cats refuse to start eating regular food

Question
Dear Janna Connell,

My mom and I have been raising 6 kittens that someone had left in a soap box by my sisters car when they were only a day old. Thankfully they're all still alive and well and are going to be 6 weeks old this Saturday. Up until now we've been bottle feeding them the milk replacer and then we changed to goat milk. but now they're teeth have all come in and they keep biting the nipple on the bottle, so now we're trying to push them to eat regular dry food, we've even tried soaking the food in milk, and in water like it says on the directions but they wont take to it. My dad even went and bought some wet kitten food from the store and they still wont eat it no matter how hard we try. We have even left in their room with them and still nothing, it seems all they want is milk from the bottle , we tried letting them drink it out of a bowl and they wont take to that either. So my question to you is, "what can we do to get the kittens to start eating dry food on their own?". If you know any other ways possible than what we've tried or any advice I would be grateful. Thank you for you're time.  

Answer
Hi Daniel,
Well you have 6 little kittens telling you what to do! Makes it kind of tough when they are still on the bottle and at 6 weeks. This is probably because you didn't start them on the wet or dry food a week or so ago.

But never fear, you can still switch them over. The problem is really not the kittens, but you and your mom keep giving them the bottle!
We need a little tough love here-

At six weeks, you should just stop, period. They will not starve. They will cry, but you two have to stop giving in to them. Put the food out, leave it with them and walk away. Don't give them a bottle.
They will start eating because they WILL get hungry as long as you STOP giving them a bottle. Don't give them milk in a bowl either.

You need to just stop. Did I say that again? Stop giving them milk of any sort in a bottle, bowl or otherwise.

Put little dishes of canned food out and a plate, not a bowl, but a plate of dry food.  Do not use Purina Kitten chow as it has cow's milk in it and will give them diarrhea,plus it has very little nutrition in it.

Get them a 4 lb. bag of Science Diet kitten growth formula and they will be eating the food in less than a week. Get them some Science Diet canned as well, and put it in a plate as well. It is easier for them to eat from a plate to start with.

You have to be strong, not give in to the crying and just cold turkey them. They will cry and then they will eat. They are just bossing you around basically and you are doing what they want, which is feeding them from the bottle.

Eating is work and they have been lazy by sucking on bottles.

So tough love them and you will have 6 happy kitties soon. And two happy people.

Pleas let me know how they are doing in a few days.