Fellow Parents: I'd like some advice for ditching the bedtime bottle habit?

You throw all away all the bottles in the house and realize that it’s going to be really shitty for a few days. She’ll get over it. There really is no other way. The longer you wait the harder it will be. (It’s actually one of the reasons we never used bottles. We went directly from breastfeeding to a sippy cup, but that cat’s out of that bag for you already).

Also, I recommend a book. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. It saved our sanity.

Don’t worry about it. Let her have her bottle. Do you know any teenagers who won’t go to bed without their bottle? Nuff said…

I don’t know if @HungryGuy is kidding, but you absolutely have to get rid of the bottle. Bottle feeding, especially in older kids is associated with a higher rate of ear infections and dental caries.

@HungryGuy No, but it does cause tooth decay and other tooth problems, and also I don’t want her to become obese because of the extra calories, and also I don’t want to spend the next 2 years laying in bed with her and feeding her a bottle.

Do you have kids?

@Rarebear How long is a few days? I want to do it asap, but I also have finals coming up in the next few weeks. If she will be over it in 3–4 days, I can manage that, but if not it’ll have to wait a few weeks.

It’s so funny how quickly we, as parents, forget what our tricks were…I had to run this by my husband to remember

We began the process to eliminate the midnight feeding by:

1. Switch formula/breast milk to water only
2. Decrease amount over time
3. Scale the time you give the bottle down to the next earliest meal – for us that was 8pm so eventually we gave bottle at 11: 30, then 11, then 10 30, then 10 (while decreasing amount of water), then scaled back to 8 which meant he got a bit to drink right before sleep after last meal and then nothing. With my oldest there was a 2 am meal too, that was even worse – in terms of comfort, for some time I held them both so that they fell asleep on me and then transferred into crib (I also think you should totally get a new crib, if you can afford it) We also don’t believe in the ‘let them cry it out’ philosophy

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I’ve thought of that, but I am worried about water intoxication. How much water would you give your kids?

@stemnyjones I don’t think that’s a real concept, even. I’d give the same amount as formula and then scale down.

It’s actually very real. I don’t know if it would be safe to give her 8 oz of water, which is how much milk she drinks at bedtime.

Nevermind—that’s for babies under 1.

@stemnyjones Well, we never really gave them any other water besides that so I’m pretty sure 8oz isn’t as big a deal as giving that much formula – if you’re comfortable, give 6oz.

I think I found my own solution to the worry of water intoxication. Pedialyte instead of water in the bottles?

Have you already taken the bottle away for all other drinks during the day? If not, that’s the first step. As you mentioned your daughter likes it for the comfort. For some young children, the bottle is a security thing (like having their favorite blanky which acts as a security blanket for them).

Are you trying to get her to stop wanting milk before bed or just the bottle specifically? My son use to always have a glass of milk before bed. He stopped doing that several years ago though. I like having a glass of milk before bed sometimes, so I don’t see a problem with it (as long as they are drinking water and juice during the day). If you want to get rid of just the bottle, you could try throwing away the bottles and just relying on sippy cups. I would make a big deal out of your little girl becoming a big girl and involve her in throwing them away. That way it means a bit more to her.

If it’s a matter of wanting to get rid of both the milk and bottle, I’d follow @Simone_De_Beauvoir suggests above.

I agree with @Rarebear. Get rid of the bottles and switch to sippy cups. Cold turkey is the best way to deal with this. You can still sit with her at night with the sippy cup, and hold her until she goes to bed if you don’t want her to cry it out. It may seem like an eternity when dealing with these things, but it should take just a few days before she forgets about that bottle.

@stemnyjones No way to predict how long. Some kids are more stubborn than others. But the longer you wait the harder it is. Get that book I recommended up above.

She drinks from a sippy cup all day long, and doesn’t need the milk – it’s just the comfort from sucking the bottle that we need to break.

@stemnyjones being overhydrated to the point that it is dangerous and life threatening can happen with any liquid. It can happen to an adult who drinks water or any liquid in large quantities too fast. People have indeed died from it. I would not worry about a small bottle of any liquid for your child.

I am not a parent, but I like @Simone_De_Beauvoir answer, because I don’t understand at all drinking before bedtime (excluding infants). I never begged my mom for a glass of water to avoid having to go to bed, and I never had to pee in the middle of the night throughout my childhood. I still rarely get up in the middle of the night to pee, because I don’t drink before bedtime.

Last suggestion. My girlfriend weaned her son from breast feeding by only allowing him to breastfeed in the blue chair in the den. Eventually he did not really like having to be away from the tv or the other people in the house, so he chose to breast feed less often. Maybe only allow the bottle in the kitchen, and give your child some alternative to sooth himself while in bed

Meanwhile, your daughter is still very young. Like I said, infants are different.

Ok, we’ve pretty much decided that we are throwing away the bottles. She already takes the sippy cup all day, so it’s just the night-time feeding that we need to deal with.

My only problem now is the bedtime routine. For months now she’s gotten used to us laying on her mattress with her while we feed her, then once she starts falling asleep, we leave the room and ignore her 1–2 minutes of crying before she falls asleep. Besides a bath an hour or two before bed, we don’t really have any bed-time routine before the actual laying in bed with her.

So what do we do as far as the routine? Lay in there with her without the bottle? She doesn’t like to be held, and if she isn’t getting the bottle she refuses to lie down for more than a minute or two at a time (keeps sitting up, cries hysterically if we make her lie down). I don’t know if we should lie in bed with her for a certain amount of time before leaving, or lie in there until she actually starts to put herself to sleep (could honestly be hours – not too long ago I laid down with her at 6pm and left her room at 3am, and she still cried when I left), or just lie her down and leave.

@stemnyjones Now is a great time to start a bedtime routine of reading before going to sleep. There are some really cute touch and feel books for children this age. Books with fur for animals and such.

Personally, I would stop lying in bed with her. Perhaps replace the bottle with a story. Let her pick out a book and tell her she must lay down if she wants you to read it to her. She will most likely resist at first, but once she realizes the bottle isn’t coming back, she will adjust to it.

Like I mentioned earlier, I’d make a big deal about throwing away the bottles because she is a big girl now. Let her help throw them away and feel like she is a part of it.

@Seaofclouds Don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but your suggestions seem aimed at a child a little older than 1. Alyssa is too young to understand what “your such a big girl” means, and way too young to partake in throwing away her bottles – she’d probably just take it and run off to hit the cat in the head with it. She also won’t understand “Lie down if you want me to read it to you”.

@stemnyjones I suggested that because it’s what worked with my son when he was a year old. We did it with his pacifier and his bottles. A few days before his first birthday I started talking to him about being a big boy and about how big boys don’t drink out of bottles and use pacifiers. We went out and bought sippy cups together and when we got home, he threw away his bottles and pacifier on his own. I talked about him being a big boy with other milestones too though, so this wasn’t the first time he was exposed to it. Whenever he reached a milestone, I told him he was getting to be such a big boy and he was growing up so fast.

Perhaps your daughter can’t understand those things yet. You know her better than we do. Some kids do understand that stuff though. It’s all a matter of what they are normally exposed to. If she’s never been talked to before about getting to be a big girl, it would take more work to get her to understand it, but kids can understand more than adults tend to think they can.

@Seaofclouds Hmm. Well, your son was developmentally ahead of my girl at 1, and most other kids, as according to my understanding, by 1 they only have a definite understanding of a few words and short phrases. She definitely wouldn’t understand a lecture about becoming a big girl, or a command to throw out her bottles.

Ok, so we do have a few touch-and-feel books, finger puppet books, and other baby books that we can read to her. I’m thinking that when it’s bedtime she gets a bath with the dim lights on, then directly into bed where we read her a few stories with the light off and a nightlight on, then turn off the nightlight and leave the room, and let her cry the first couple of nights until she gets used to it.

Sounds good, but I’m sure it won’t feel good, lol.

@stemnyjones You’ll get through it. You’ll blink your eyes and she’ll be in kindergarten. Trust me! Good luck. :)

I agree with you @stemnyjones about the big girl routine! Kids don’t understand the concept of being a big girl and actually could back fire as kids that age do not want big kid responsibilities and IMO should not be burdened that way. Children that age want a total sense of security. Both my boys had their blankies and boy dollies to snuggle up with at nap and bed time. We kept it simple here is your bed, here is your blanket and doll, always a bed time story, a kiss and said good night sleep tight. The routine was all important to keeping it smooth and simple for everyone. Those extra few minutes I invested with them meant no problems. Taking the bottle away was not simple but any fuss or struggles went away in 2–3 days.

I completely agree with @Seaofclouds re: the lying down bit. We started leaving our daughter alone in the room at 6 months. Lying in bed with the child just tells the child that they’ll get extra mommy time if they fuss at bedtime. Again, and I promise I’ll mention it for the last time, read the book I referenced. It’s all about this.

I simply switched the bottle from milk to warm water, then, after a couple of months, to room temperature tap water, and never gave it another thought after that. She broke the habit herself by the time she was two.

Reuse the method that got her to sleep in her crib. You know it works for her, she understands it.

You can do it twice, if you prefer. First do it with leaving her alone in the room, but let her keep the bottle. After she has adjusted to that, take the bottle away and do it again.

@Rarebear Sorry that I never mentioned the book, haha. I’m going to give it a read, but right now I’m completely broke, so it’ll have to wait until I go to the library.

Today was her first day without the bottle. She’s been going through a phase where she will not take a nap for me, only my partner (she did the same thing but vice versa with eating solids), so when I tried to put her down for her first nap she just cried for about an hour until I had to go. The rest of the day and for her bed time, my partner has put her down. For naps we read a few stories then it’s time to sleep (we stay with her for naps because we take naps with her, lol), and for night time she gets a bath, brushes her teeth, bedtime stories, then bed. She cried for maybe 10–15 minutes at the beginning of all her sleep sessions today with my partner, but afterwards she went to sleep. I don’t think this’ll be as hard as I thought.