Please do not leave the bottles empty. You’ll have to just be patient and see if they start using the bowl but you cannot force them. And leaving the bottles empty could be dangerous if they don’t start using the bowl instead.

I tried switching from bottles to bowls and neither bun was interested. Til they were spayed and neutered and in recovery – then they discovered the bowl and haven’t looked back! I kept the bottles in addition to the bowl for a few weeks to be sure but once they started on the bowls, the bottles were ignored almost instantly.

As sarahthegemini said, do NOT leave the bottles empty. I do have a trick that worked with Cinnabun when transitioning her from bottle to bowl, however. I put a little bit of apple juice in the bowl of water for the first week and she would go nuts! The first time I did it, she was super confused – turns out she just didn’t know even HOW to drink from a bowl of water! It was quite silly to watch… she was going bonkers over the smell of apples but didn’t know how to get to it. She finally learned how to drink it from the bowl, and now only drinks water from a bowl. So perhaps your buns just may be confused about how to drink water from a bowl. Good luck!