Getting toddler off the bottle

[AmyAmy1980]

My daughter is fifteen months old. She was sleeping through until she went to nursery in December, when she had a series of colds and viruses and started waking in the night for milk.

The upshot is she now has a serious dependency on the milk bottle to get herself to sleep. She doesn't self-soothe but just screams for milk, and we have caved in so many times (mainly during the week when working..) that now it's a habit. The nappies weigh a ton because she is drinking so much in the night!

Anyway. We've had enough and started giving her a cup only (because they should be off the bottle at about a year anyway?). However, I've now got total meltdown every naptime and bedtime as she picks up the cup, realises its not the bottle, chucks it, demands it again, gets angry, chucks it, and so on. She doesn't drink milk to get to sleep but tantrums herself to sleep now. Any advice or anyone been through similar? We're determined to get a grip on this and get some kind of normal sleep routine going!

[ftmsoon]

No helpful ideas, but DD is 22 months and we are considering when to get her off the bottle. She only gets it at bedtime, not nap time.

[KatyN]

I would keep the bottle for now. My son gave it up at 22 months just because he preferred a cup of cold milk to a bottle of warm( no idea why the different temperatures came in different vessels). If she's getting that upset and there is nothing hugely wrong I would let it slide- but I am a lazy parent!!
K

[cornishglos]

15 months is young. Don't make things hard for yourself. My son needed a bottle to get to sleep until hid second birthday. It used to work a treat. Now he's not much bigger, and still needs a sippy cup. All in good time!

[ODog]

DS is 21mo and still has a bottle at night and in the morning (although doesn't use it to fall asleep - he has a dummy for that!). It won't be forever, make life easier for all of you and let her have it for now.

[DangerMouth]

Dd1 had a bottle before until she was just 4. It was the only way to get her to have milk. She's not had milk since.

[OhShutUpThomas]

Just keep the bottle. Does no harm if you're on top of teeth cleaning, and the suck reflex has actually been shown to be beneficial for brain development.

[minipie]

Hmm, if she's having it multiple times a night I would be worried about her teeth tbh (and also is it impacting her food intake?)

Have you tried a dummy, or even an empty bottle, instead?

[DirtyHarrietOnABike]

My son had two night feeds until 2.6yr. I decided to swap the bottle to a cup and he stopped.

I see you have done this and apparently have no choice but keep giving her the bottle for now. Why don't you try again in a couple of months? Maybe the fixation with pass by then... She is still very young...

[Ohsotired123]

My dd came off the bottles at 4 months as that's when she started sleeping through, I really hope she doesn't start it up again lol. But my sister was in a situation where her daughter age 1 was still waking for bottles and what she did was make up some warm juice in a beaker not a bottle and have her that when she woke, it took a week to crack it but she soon stopped waking. It's the sucking of the bottle at night which is a big part of it, it's for comfort so that's why she used a beaker to wean her off it.

[Oxfordblue]

Rotting teeth!

Just take the bottle away, you'll have a couple of nights & then it'll be fine.

[Allnamesaretakenffs]

My son was on a bottle until just over 2, then I bought him those "crazy straws" (the really curly ones) to help him want to drink from a cup. Nothing else worked with him (it still took a week or so because his little sister was still having a bottle)

[Allnamesaretakenffs]

He loves to watch the milk woosh around the bends in the straw.

[shrunkenhead]

Have you tried replacing the milk with water or gradually making a bigger hole in the teat of the bottle?

[kiki22]

My son loved his milk in a bottle by the age of 2 he was hardly eating food and relying on the bottle to sleep so I had to go cold turkey with him. I cut the teats in half of all the bottles so I wasn't tempted to give in 3days and nights and he stopped asking.

I think when its such a dependency if your going to stop it its kinder just to go cold turkey, I tried for 6 months to get him off it until the night I went snap happy with the scissors.