My 18 month old still takes a bottle of milk before nap and bed time. We know we need to wean her off of this, but she doesn't seem willing to drink milk from anything else (ie cup, sippy cup). I think milk has become ingrained in her head as something she has at bedtime and not any other time, and we need to get away from that. Any suggestions would be helpful!
PS - she does not get the bottle in her crib, she drinks it in our laps before we put her down. Shes never had bottles in her crib.
I took the advice of taking my daughter to the store to pick out her sippy cup just for milk. She was so excited about that sippy cup (she continues to chant "Sippy Cup, Sippy Cup") that she immediately wanted everything to go into it, so it was a lot less painful than I expected. We had planned to start with nap time, but the first night, I asked her if she wanted the bottle or sippy cup, she said firmly, Sippy Cup! We haven't had a bottle since. She's not drinking as much milk right now, but I'm just happy to be away from the bottle. Binkies are my next battle, but I'll be waiting a year or so before thinking about that one!
Thanks for the advice!
It has been my experience that a small child/baby will give up the bottle on his/her own when she/he no longer has a need for the comfort it gives them.
Why push it?
I really do not know of any five year olds running home from kindergarten for a bottle.
Tincture of time and patience, she harms no one with her sleep bottle.
Best wishes and God bless
Grandmother Lowell
Take her to the store and have her pick out her own special sippy cup. Tell her that it is for milk. When you get home just put the milk in that sippy cup and tell her it is a special cup just for her and be very proud. She may ask for the bottles and say, you drink from a special cup like mommy drinks from a special cup. And just leave it at that. She'll get over it. We still use a bottle maybe twice a day, but he doesn't care if he drinks out of a bottle or a sippy cup, as long as he gets his milk. My son is almost two. I don't see anything wrong with bottles as long as they drink their milk and not drink out of all day long and they aren't attached to it. Best wishes.
We had the same thing with my daughter--and some of the moms in my playgroup recommended the Nuby sippy cups with the silicone nipples. Great transitional cup--my daughter still thinks it's a bottle, but it's got a sippy cup top. Worked great for us!
Good luck!
We are just about to do the same with our daughter. When we did this with our son at almost 2, we did the following and it work remarkable well:
- explain what you are doing-- bottles are for little babies. Big girls drink from cups and don't need their bottle at night. But you can have your blankies, dollies, mommy will rub your back and give you kisses.
- give lots of love and keep the other bedtime rituals-- if you read three books, pre-bed bath, rocking -- keep doing those things.
- start omitting the least-favorite bottle first. For us, we started going without the nap bottle (there was less fight) and when our son was used to that, moved on to the nighttime bottle.
- give her a sippy cup of milk before bed. She'll have the same full belly but disassociate it with drinking in bed.
- you can even make a big thing of taking her to the store and letting her pick out her own sippy cups or cups with straws.
- if she does want a bottle to suck on, give her a small bottle of water. They are usually not that interested in that and easy to give it up.
Good luck to you! We are with you!
If she can drink from a cup then you are just going to have to make her take the cup. Get rid of the bottles. Put water in it instead too as it's bad for her teeth to leave milk sitting on them. She might not be happy about it at first and there will be some crying, but it has to be done.
