getting toddler off bottle - help!

[Slayer]

Hi all,
our 2 1/2 year old still goes to bed with a bottle and pretty much sucks on it all night. She's also a frequent waker, only to be pacified with another bottle of milk. We are tired of this, and its bad for her teeth.

But, trying to get her to sleep without a bottle is really hard - she becomes hysterical, and can keep it up for ages. She also starts jumping out of her cot. Her speech is not advanced, so cant really offer bribes or negotiate very much.

Never had this problem with her sisters - bit at a loss. Any suggestions?

Many thanks!

We weaned our DSs off bottle by replacing the milk bottles with water, worked well for them. They occasionally drank the water but more often the bottle was full in the morning.
With DD that tactic didn't work at all so she went 'cold turkey' It didn't last more than a week if I remember correctly.

She needs a bed not a cot and no bottle imo. I would do both at the same time and prepare for a horrible week but then peace and quiet. We did rapid return for both of our children and it works really quickly. You have to be determined to stick to doing it exactly. As Tanya Byron describes though otherwise everyone gets upset and you are wasting your time.

I talked and talked for about 2 months about the bottle fairy and how there were babies with no bottles and then on the last night he helped me put them in a bag that we hung on his bedroom door.

The next day three books were left in their places. We had a few wobbles and he stopped drinking milk completely for awhile, and still drinks a lot less, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I feared.

He was three though, so a bit older than yours.

Same problem here! My dd is 2.2 and still wants a bottle of milk at bedtime and first thing (about 8oz). She doesn't ask for it in the day though. I've tried cutting the morning one coz I appreciate warm milk at bedtime is comforting but she continues to ask for a morning bottle. Considering she happily drinks her juice from a cup with no straw or lid it's really doing my head in!

Bin the bottles and do rapid return.

Bottles after a year old are bad for speech development as well as their teeth.

Daftmaul - my dd won't bloody stop talking so the bottles haven't effected language here at all!

we went cold turkey, DS was 18m, it took about a week, he was upset to start with but then got used to his sippy cups during the day and none in the night very quickly, I think its just a comfort thing in the night IME, same thing going from his faveourite sippy cup to open cups - I've found so far that all habits can be changed in a week.... now he's 2.7 I'm hoping the same will go for toilet training :) hahaHAHAHA goes a bit madeyed with desperate hope

Don't panic too much about speech development OP. My DD still has a bottle in the morning and one in the evening at the same age and she never stops talking, like OhEmGee24, and has very clear speech.

However, like you, we are trying to get rid of it (at least you only have the night time one to drop!)

We are going with the bottle fairy route which issima mentions. We are going to replace the bottles with a new very special drinking cup in the colour she has asked for (green) as this is how a friend of ours has dealt with it. We have only delayed as we are potty training and thought we would get that sorted before introducing another change.

I think the sucking on it all night thing is a bit more of a problem though - could you try replacing the bottle with a special new toy for that purpose?

2 and a 1/2 is a good age to just go cold turkey. It will cause distress but due to shorter memory she will also bounce back quicker.

Get a lovely box which is all decorated, sparkly and pretty... Bring the bottle fairy in and tell her that she needs to collect all her bottles up for the bottle fairy to give them to the little babies and she's going to have a big girl cup (this will come in the fairy's box once the bottles are binned). Whatever you do, don't go back on yourself - chuck them out so you don't have an option and she cannot see them anymore!!

She will have a sleepless night but at this point you can implement the stay in bed technique or statue technique to bridge the gap. She will get out of bed, but if you use the techniques correctly then you will see results within 2/3nights. If you need help with this, you can get a supernanny in to help you during the transition and to give you reassurance you're doing ok!

At the moment - her bottle is her sleeping cue and without it, cannot feel comfortable. Ideally she should self settle without any cue, but in this case you need to replace this with a snuggly blanket/toy. Let her choose this at her special item or give her something once the bottle fairy has come and taken the bottles away... (the bottle fairy likes leaving presents!)

You need to nip this in the bud - waiting will not make it easier!

NannyChels
(Supernanny for TheNannyTree)

The sleeping through the night with it may harm teeth but Iv actually no problem with one if they want

2.7 year old here has bottle am and pm, probably more due to you get siblings also having one that doesn't want to change to beaker

He drinks out of a normal cup no problem all day so has cup daytime and bottle before bed and when wakes. He is tiny though and I'm reluctant to drop as he won't drink quantity of milk in cup as bottle and the milk is keeping weight on enough. ( he eats good 3 meals and snack but bird appetite, younger brother is heavier)

Sucking from a teat promotes an immature suck reflex that would usually disappear at about a year (hence the recommendation that bottles should not be used after a year). When sucking this way, the tongue moves in a lateral/ front back movement that can affect development of teeth as well as speech sounds (as opposed to language development). Adults cannot generally drink from a teat because they have lost their immature sucking pattern and try to use their cheeks to suck, to no avail!

There will always be people who say their children used their bottles until 15 yrs old and had no problems but I used to see many children with speech sound problems who were still using bottles.

At the end of the day, you have to choose when to stop and which approach will work best for you.

Forevergreek, have you considered that your ds may be 'filling up' on milk hence he has no appetite for other food? Dietitians I worked with used to see this a lot. When the quantity of milk was reduced, their children's appetite increased. I appreciate it is a difficult juggling act though as you are desperately trying to squeeze in as many calories as possible!

We actually stopped the milk for 2 months and he lost a fair amount of weight hence the restarting. Given in a cup he only drank about 2/3 oz worth instead of 8/10 oz

I'm giving him high calorie foods in day

Eg so far today:
eaten porridge with banana followed by boiled egg
Guacamole and pitta bread around 10.30am
Just had chicken risotto and yogurt

Will prob have fruit and nuts after nap and fish pie for dinner

Just all not every large portions...

Do you add cream to mash (ctually on anything you can!) and butter on veggies?

I'm sure you do. Gold top milk also good.

Yup

Not overly concerned as I think he just uses up more than he takes in! He can walk/ run for hours ( hasn't used buggy since around 16 months so has built up speed and walks everywhere sometimes miles a day)

Prob just needs stomach to grow with age to accommodate

( sorry for thread hijack!)

Hmmm, reading Daft Maul's second post, it occurs to me that DD does have a bit of a lisp. It is quite sweet but I suppose it could be related to the way her tongue moves and I can see the bottle could be affecting that (although she is a thumb-sucker too, and I don't know how that affects speech, if at all.) Perhaps we will bring the bottle fairy's arrival forward a bit....

OP, perhaps I was a bit hasty to say we have had no problems, although you are clearly intending to do something anyway.

Having said that Mummypig, my dd also has a bit of a lisp and she stopped using her bottles at about 13-14 months. It certainly won't help though

thanks for advice all. Too tired today to reply until now!

Shoppingbagsundereyes, I think you may be right, perhaps bed at same time. Couldn't face it before, but perhaps it makes sense, better than putting her back in the cot hundreds of times!

Unacceptable, we tried water with one of our other kids, and it did work. I had thought that as youngest is so bottle-tastic it wouldnt help, but maybe it might be worth a try if this is too awful.

Sigh. Glad I wont be going thru this again...

HI DaftMaul,
forgot to say thanks for pointing out bit about speech development - didn't know that. Had added to determination to win!

Ta

HI Brightonbleach, re potty training, we have always done it really slowly, over a couple of months, using pull-up nappies (and smarties). Pretty stress free, amazingly...

I have a non-talking nearly three year old who still drinks from a bottle. Her younger brother isn't all that fussed about them, so maybe it's time to go cold turkey. OH (the worst one for giving bottles) is away so no interference either...

My experience with all these things is that it is never as bad as you think it will be. Dd loved her dummy, sucked it whenever we would let her but we agreed it would go when she was 1. I was dreading it and tried to persuade dh to leave it a bit longer. He was adamant, took it away, she was a pain on the first night, then fell straight to sleep on the second night. Problem solved almost effortlessly. Same with ds and bottles. I threw them away the night before we went on holiday (he was 16 months). I told him I had forgotten to pack the bottles and he never mentioned them again.
The key is to never go back otherwise they learn quickly that if they whinge enough you will cave. They then apply that knowledge to all aspects of life and you get a whingey kid.
Mine are a pita in a variety of ways but both know I mean what I say so we get very little whinging.