How to change bedtime routine to get rid of bottle?

[clare8allthepies]

Hi, at the moment we're in quite a good routine with DD.

After dinner it's bath, teeth brushed then nappy, pyjamas on then bed with either one of us and a bottle of milk. She has a cuddle while she drinks her milk then it's into the cot and she chats away to dolly for a while then goes to sleep. This is great as in the past she has been a rubbish sleeper with it taking up to 2 hours sometimes to get her to sleep.

BUT She's 2 this week. I know she's too old for a bottle and I'm not happy about her drinking milk after having her teeth brushed. I just don't want to change things and lose the sleep!

I might try giving her a cup of warm milk to drink while she gets pyjamas on then take her to brush her teeth on the way to bed and see if she will still go to sleep ok.

Any advice?

Could you substitute a cuddle with a story instead of cuddle with milk?
With mine I think I suggested moving to a "big girl" cup of warm milk which we had downstairs before bed, so she still had milk but it was part of a "grown up" routine.
All 3 of mine however, drank a lot less milk when it was no longer in a bottle and it wasn't long before they stopped a bedtime drink altogether. Try to make this bit coincide with potty training for a drier night!

I would just try bruushing her teeth after her bottle. I don't think you can be too old for one bottle a day. If you can work the teeth cleaning thing out, I would leave the bottle until she grows out of it.

I'm with seeker on this one tbh.
She'll eventually grow out of it.Mine would only have milk from a bottle so my theory was that I'd rather they had the milk than didn't.

I gave DD a beaker of milk instead of a bedtime bottle at 14mo. She didn't moan or fuss and within 2 days wasn't having bedtime milk. I'd anticipated a long struggle to get rid.

Thanks for your replies (haven't been on in a while) think we'll leave it a bit longer to get rid of the bottle, might try and see if she'll have her teeth brushed afterwards without getting up and running about the place!

My DD is just two and we aren't planning on stopping the bottle, but I am starting to give it to her while we're still downstairs, and then get her ready for bed, brush teeth etc. I am trying to have reading as the bedtime thing now. But I am worried more about her teeth than her not having a bottle which I think if she wants then fine.

We're just starting to try and transition to a cup for our 18mth old - we had an abortive attempt about a month ago but his teeth flared up so it all went out the window. What we've done over the last couple of nights is gone and poured a cup of milk (DS chooses the cup and there's lots of chat about lovely milk), he then drinks it while watching Cbeebies bedtime hour. Then we do a cuddle and a song and he's in his cot and away! I've probably jinxed it now but it's worked really well for the last two evenings. Once that's established then I'll try and wangle the tooth brushing in. (Oh and shift the morning milk to a cup too!!)

Just brush teeth after the bottle.

I'm not even going to tell you how long ds had a bottle for!

We stopped bottles at bedtime while on holiday. I had forgotten to take one with us, but DS (21m) had just learned to drink through a straw on the flight (juice box) and was so taken with this method of drinking that he wanted to drink his milk through a bendy straw! He drank all his other drinks from a spouted cup, it was just the bedtime bottle we needed to stop. Teeth were always done after the milk in any case.

The bottles weren't remembered when we came home, and I discreetly gave them to a PG friend. Our HV said that a change like a holiday where everything is different is often a good time to implement new ways of doing things.