Bottles

[LyraBelaqua]

My 18 mo still has a bottle of milk which we feed her morning and night and sometimes if she wakes during the night and we can't settle her. She loves her bottle and I dont see this as a problem at the moment. I'm due to have DC2 in October and will probably bottlefeed again. My question is should I try and get DD1 off her bottle before baby arrives or is there no point? Should I let her continue with it and risk not getting her off it until DC2 is weaning off by which time she could be four (as I was myself) if she is really stubborn!

Also, if I stop her bottles how do I go about it? She has 1 directly before getting into bed but doesn't go straight to sleep, but I think she really sees it as a kind of signal that its time to got to bed. We had so much trouble getting her into this bedtime routine I'm scared to change it incase we revert back to screaming for 1 hr in bed each night. Also she doesn't really drink alot from cups. Any advice gratefully received thanks :)

If it ain't broke, why fix it? Your DD sees the bottle as part of her routine, and let's face it, her life is going to change an awful lot in October with the arrival of little brother or sister - she will need familiar routines and reassurances more than ever then. If you want her to have her milk a different way during the day why not try a spout, like the Avent ones that fir onto the locking ring instead of a teat? Mine progressed to these when they werre ready.

(DD3 is now 3 and still has milk 3 x daily in a bottle with a teat. Am I bothered? Not in the slightest)

HTH.

Oh good, I was hoping someone would say something along those lines. Thank you.

I very much doubt she'll be leaving school with a bottle.

I wouldn't sweat it. Honestly.

What we did with ours was stopped offering it to her if she wasn't looking for it, if she looked for a bottle we gave it to her but if she didn't we just gave her a cup instead, they both went off bottles themselves this way but I don't think they were REALLY attached to them either so it's just something you can try if you want.

I stopped my DS having a bottle when he was 14mths. Best thing I ever did as I think if I have waited we would have had a meltdown.

We used a training cup with a soft sprout. Then moved onto a tommee tippee first cup beaker.

Ds is 19 months and just dropped the bottle himself which made life so much easier than me taking it away.

As long as she doesn't have it hanging out of her mouth all day then I would leave it until she is ready to give it up

ds1 had a bottle of milk before bed every night until he was 5. it's fine, really.

So long as you brush her teeth after the bottle it's fine.

Milk is very sugary, so you don't want it sitting on her teeth all night.