Toddler still has bottles at night! Help

[Apple1993]

Hello,

My little one turns 3 in May and still has a 9 oz bottle of mostly milk/topped with water to go to sleep, and anywhere from 1-3 5 oz bottles during the night. We have reduced it to 50:50 milk and water during the night. She still currently has a teat bottle, but we've told her the Easter bunny is going to take her bottles away soon and bring her some big girl cups and some easter eggs. She seems happy enough with that plan. We plan to buy the Tommee Tippee Sportee bottles.

But should we bring in no more milk at the same time? or continue with milk but reduced with more water.

I know her teeth should be brushed after the milk, so please no judgment regarding this. We have had a tough ride over the last few years with her sleep, which massively impacted myself with postnatal depression and sleep deprivation. She still doesn't sleep through the night and I know the bottles might be contributing to this. But I'm very wary and nervous to take them away, as I know we'll be in for difficulty with trying to settle her in the night.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks X

I’ve had similar (breast not bottle but I think by that age the same principles apply…) and honestly, I’d go cold turkey rather than faffing around with different cups. You will have a tough week, for sure. But gradual changes will only prolong the problem and put off the inevitable.

Stick with the Easter Bunny plan, any maybe have new cups in the day. But the bunny takes all the milk in the night!

There will be tears (you and her…) but she’ll be fine. And it honestly won’t take long until she’s sleeping so much better, which will be good for both of you!

I night weaned my DS when he was just over one. What helped was making sure he was eating a LOT in the day, and having a nice fatty/meaty dinner which I knew would keep him full over night.

When he woke in the night he was offered cuddles and water. I tag teamed with DP and it was easier when we were both on board and stepping in when the other was having a hard time. He cried, I cried, everyone got over it after a few days.

I think you just need to gird your loins and do it sooner rather than later. Not sure why you're negotiating to do this over Easter, I wouldn't want to associate it with a holiday?

No judgement here....we were in a similar boat with sleep deprivation and pnd and you just do what it takes to get through. We have an extremely strong willed toddler, so our approach was to continue to gradually water down the milk until 100% water, and we used these nuk transition cups. She then just stopped waking for it. However if your lo is a bit more amenable then it may be worth biting the bullet and moving straight to an open or sippy cup of water and deal with the fallout! Our next task is getting rid of the dummy 😩

We were the same with our 3.5 YO.

Throw away the bottles.

Our son would eat fuck all during the day and 3 bottles at night. After we dropped the bottles we couldn't fill him with food during the day.

It's scary but just do it you won't regret it.

Also a thought if you wanted to take a.more gradual approach, maybe focus on self settling at bedtime first without going to sleep on the bottle....you may find that solves the night wakes anyway.

Thanks everyone for the quick response.

She's a very strong willed little girl, so I'm leaning towards the gradual approach with diluting the milk until it becomes 100% water.
We used a sleep consultant for a little while when she was younger, and although it wasn't a cry it out method, her determination nearly broke me and the thought of trying to get her to self settle really isn't worth it for me this time round.

As soon as we switched from bottles to sippy cups or similar our little milk monster was no longer interested!

@Pinklittle fingers crossed she does this. What bottles did you switch to? And did you keep the milk the same or reduce/dilute it?
thanks x

Same as @Pinklittle - when we made the change DD was younger than yours but also very, very strong willed. I told her she could have water in bottle A, or milk in bottle B, but baby bottles were not an option. The first night she was cross. The second night she was absolutely apoplectic, the third night she didn’t even ask for milk. We saw an almost instant improvement in her sleep, which I really didn’t expect.

She now goes to sleep with a water bottle in her bed (her request) but very rarely drinks from it. She actually has the Nuk one posted above. I tried transition beakers with soft spouts to be more similar to a bottle but they just irritated her.