Breaking feed to sleep association

[ANiceBathPlease]

Hi, does anyone have any tips for breaking the feed to sleep association please? Baby (10 months) is formula fed and in very structured good routine, except for I still need bottle to get baby to drowsy stage before bed. I know the ideal routine I want (bottle then stories before bed) but I don't know how to achieve this?

Have you tried it and did it work? My formula fed one had a bottle and then a cup of milk before bed until she was 4 and bf until about 16 months. We stopped it when it stopped working. So they would have their milk and if they didn't fall asleep, we'd lie them down and read a book. It was never something we had to fight to get out of. Used it while it made things easy and when it didn't work because they didn't get sleepy anymore, we tried something else. I'd say that happened between about 10-14 months naturally, so it could be you just need to give it more time or you need to persist.

If you're offering a bottle and they are always falling asleep after the feed, put them to bed and get on with your night. I don't think you need to make it harder for yourself than it needs to be.

Good point @mindutopia! Baby is now sleeping through the night 12 hours (at the moment) so I guess if it works I could just view it as 'why change it' 🤷‍♀️

Also, I forgot to add- this is happening before baby's two days naps at the moment as well as at bedtime. So after 12 months we will still be on at least one nap a day but advice is to only have milk at bedtime. So I'll need to be able to get baby down for day nap at least without milk.

I addressed the feed to sleep issue with my 10 month old son under the guidance of a sleep consultant and it worked wonders.

I don’t have time to tell you of my experience right now but I will PM you later this evening to tell you how I did it.

My little one just grew out of feeding to sleep, probably around that age. I’d let it happen naturally tbh, if feeding to sleep leads to 12hours of sleep I wouldn’t look to change it!

Also who’s advice is milk only at bedtime? Plenty of BF babies continue to have milk multiple times per day long past 1, bottle fed possibly lesson common but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the advice to specifically limit it to 1 bottle a day? My daughter is 2 and has 2 lots of milk a day.

Thanks. Yes the HV has said by 12 months it should be one milk a day at bedtime, cows milk drunk from a sippy cup. Baby is currently on 3 bottles a day so I've got my work cut out!

Hmm ok, I wouldn’t take that as gospel. Nothing bad will happen if your baby is still having 2 lots of milk at a year x

It is never as cut in stone as all that and given you're not supposed to give them cow's milk as a main drink before 12 months, your HV is clearly contradicting guidance.