would you say it was a bad thing for a 4yo, 3yo and 22mo to go to sleep at night drinking from a bottle?

[BeautifulBoysGalore]

ds1 - water (it was watered down juice for a while till his teeth scared me and i finally managed to convince him to take water for that reason a few omnths ago.)
ds2 - milk
ds3 - really watered down juice (well, less watered down tonight to mask the flavour of his medicine as he has a chest infection)

theyve always gone to sleep drinking - bm till about 6m each, then bottles of follow-on formula till 12m, then cows milk (and onto juice for ds1 and 3 who dont like milk)

ds2 is die hard milk bottle lover. will cure ANY ill/hurt/sadness/overtiredness instantly. is it cruel to take that away?

do you think making them all take water would be a good way to cut it down (less incentive to drink, but still allowing the comfort of a suck)?

what about switching the bottles to smaller bottles?

they are too old for bottles, clearly. but is it bad enough to do anything about it?

I would say get rid of tem as early as possible - we get rid if them by 1 - and have tried allsorts of diffent cups, we have quite a selection!

I don't think 22mo is too young to give us

if they are insistent, then water only - milk only goes in big girl/boy cups.. take the older 2 to the shop, let them choose - works with my 3o every time

This is really good to read - I was feeling bad, but my ds 19mths really really loves his bottle. He drinks water quite happily from Tommie tipee but won't touch milk from a cup. I tried for a few days and decided I would rather he drank milk, albeit from a bottle than none at all. He has one on waking in the morning, one when he wakes from his afternoon nap and one before he goes to bed (he doesn't fall alseep on it though).

Until quite recently he used to wake at 5am and the only thing that would settle him would be a small amount of milk (50ml). I have managed to replace this with water in the last month or so - if he wakes before 6.30am (which he often does) I stagger in and give him a 50ml bottle of water - 50ml because I know that is an amount he will drink and won't leave any to leak but it also seems to send him right off.

My husband and I tried to not give him anything before morning and it was just too much hard work - we were knackered after 2 nights and decided that a small bottle of water in the middle of the night was a small price to pay for a quiet night on the whole!

When he is under the weather or just won't settle we do still sometime give him a small amount of milk in the night. It seems to drug him.