3 Year Old Still Takes a Bottle to Bed

A lot of moms might not agree with this, but when my daughter was little we decided to tell her that the Easter Bunny wanted to leave her a basket of chocolate, but he wanted her to leave all her bottles in a basket for him in exchange. She was pretty happy to put them in a basket and go to bed to wait for her candy. She asked for them a few times after Easter, but we just told her, "The Easter bunny took them for his baby bunnies, remember?" She seemed to accept this pretty well. Also you could put a bunch of new sippy cups in her basket as well. Good luck!

First , what are you giving her in her bottle for her nap and bed? Try putting plain,unflavored water in her bottle and something she likes in a good sippy cup,then give her a choice of only one to take with her for bed or nap time. It is easier to ween her off the cup than it is off a bottle. Or try offering her a favored toy instead of the bottle.or you can just let her take the bottle but only with water in it. Most kids like anything but water and she will soon get tired of the water bottle.good luck.

I told my kids that there were other babies out there that needed the bottles. They helped me pack them in a box and drew pictures for the babies that were going to get the bottles. At first there were tears putting them in box, (very important that they put their own bottles in the box) but that was it. They only asked for them once or twice after that and I showed them pictures of the babies that got their old bottles. (Printed off internet smiling babies). They felt good about what they had done for these babies. After I saw they were doing well, the babies mailed them a little thank you present. Hope it helps.
~J.

Make the bottle less appealing for her.If she likes it cold,heat it slightly,if she likes it warm,make it cooler.I assume you are putting milk in the bottle,so add an ounce of water to dilute it.Keep talking about how big girls don't drink from a bottle,offer a special bedtime cup with water only.Give her both at bed,as each week goes by,add another ounce of water and less milk to the bottle.As time goes by,she won't want the bottle.This might make it easier than quitting cold turkey.An extra snuggle at bedtime might help as well,without staying until she is asleep.

There is not simple way to do it. Just take the bottle from him and take it outside to the trash can. Make sure no other bottles are in the house, get rid of all of them if you have to. You may have 3 days of restless sleep, but in the long run it is what is best for your child.
You could give your child a new stuffed animal, and tell him that the stuffed animal was sad because he lost his bottle too. So the stuffed animal wanted to sleep with him to keep him company so he would not cry for his bottle. That way your child will comfort the stuffed animal and comfort himself at the same time.
Good luck!

try a sippie cup. your child is too big for a bottle. make sure also you are giving water not milk or juice because this can sit on their teeth and cause cavities because of the sugar in the juice and milk. may be see also if there is a stuffed animal or blanket he likes. may be you can substitute that instead of the bottle. you can also try rewards for him not taking a bottle to bed. bribery is not always good but sometimes it helps.

we give our 3 and 5(almost 6year-old)sippy cups with water at night.Oneday i told each one of my kids that bottles are yucky and i threw one away and they followed and pitched the rest.They all where younger when we did it but it might work.
As for bed time we(my husband and i)each snuggle with one child for a few minutes and than switch and than it's lights out..it seems to work and they shared a room for about 2 years now they are in seperate rooms and we still do this

Hi K.,
No need at this point to fret over spilled milk! She's 3 and still on the bottle. She's not the only kid that's been in that situation. And you're not the only mom! I think you need to get rid of all bottles. Maybe put them in a bag and have the "Bottle Fairy" come & take them to little kids who need bottles. Then the Bottle Fairy can "deliver" a special theme sippy cup (or two!) for Big Girls. I let my son have his evening bottle of "moo" for longer than I should have, but once the bottles went--they went! Secretly, I stashed O. for an extreme emergency but never had to use it! I think your daughter can still have a sippy of milk with a small snack before bed--just make sure she brushes her teeth before bedtime! And she can certainly take a sippy to naptime. Good luck K.! It won't take too long..just pick a day & begin!
Denise

At 3 yrs old no matter what you do you are going to have a fight on your hands for a couple of days. Pick a weekend when no one has to go do anything and you can sleep in and just toss the bottles in the trash. It will be tough for a couple of nights (don't lay down with her either) but once you get two or three nights in it will be fine.

Cold turkey.
This is why doctors recommend having a child weened off a bottle by a year. I know I started cups at 6 months with water/juice and on their first birthday their bottles fully disappeared.

I think cold turkey is your only option. Don't give in.

You REALLY need to wean her to a sippy cup. My doctor told us that by 15 months old a baby should be off of a bottle for teeth reasons (they decay faster, can cause problems, etc.), so you really need to do this sooner rather than later. Try giving her a sippy cup that has a softer top and only put water in it at bedtime (again, anything else can destroy her teeth). Hopefully she makes the transition well, but even if she doesn't, it has to be done...(you don't want her going to kindergarten still taking her bottle;) )

As far as I know there is no sure way to take a bottle away from a 3 year old. For many reasons this is why Drs recommend all children be off the bottle at a year old. I personally recommned cold turkey and but things will get out of hand. You might try telling your child a story about how they are such a big girl and that a fairy ( or what ever fictional character you'd like) took the bottle to give to a new baby. Another option is to put something with a nad taste in the bottle so she will not want it any more. The quicker and sooner this is done will be best.

Hi K., my name is J. and I too have two children. My son is 5, and my daughter is 3. My children also share a bedroom, so I know where you're coming from. The only advice I can give you is to cut the bottle out all together. Do it cold turkey. She will cry but eventually will get used to not having it. You mentioned that your son needed you to sleep with him. I suggest for your daughter that you get her a "special" stuffed animal. By special I mean you tell her it will keep her company and protect her, just like you would. You also mentioned that they share a room, and taking her bottle will make her cry, so if you have a spare room this is where your son should sleep until his little sister get used to sleeping with no bottle. If you don't have a spare room then have him "camp out" in the living room. My son loves to camp out indoors or out, that's why I suggested that. I had the same problem you do with my daughter when she was one and at the time my son had his own room so it was somewhat easy for my to seperate them. I hope my advice helps you.

K.,
I fully understand what you are going through. My 4-year old son was difficult to wean from the bottle and the pacifier. He was 2 1/2 before I weaned him off the pacifier. You can try to substitute a sippy cup for the bottle. I found that giving him a small stuffed animal to snuggle with also helped.

I had to remind myself that every child is different. I just chose to ignore the stares and judging eyes of other moms and concentrated on what worked best for my son.

Okay, my kids are older (12 and 14) now, so I'm out of touch, but here goes: Neither of them took bottles to bed, cuz I just held them, bounced a little and sang to them before putting them in their cribs, so we never had this problem. But when the older was was 2, the next one came. I was not ABOUT to wean her from a bottle while her younger sister got one. It seemed mean. She drank from a real cup at meal times, but she loved apple juice and drank it from a bottle which she carried around in her teeth half the day. My mother ALWAYS complained, and told me I was doing bad things for my child. For the record, yes she had braces, because she had more teeth than she had mouth -- and that had nothing to do with the bottle. She has never had a cavity in her life -- even after the braces came off ! I would be more concerned about a thumb in the mouth as your child ages, than I would be about a bottle. Our neighbor's child was still sucking her thumb at 10, and her front teeth protruded enough that she couldn't enunciate. The bottle can be taken away, the thumb can't. :-)

bottom line: you have to do what is right for you and your family, your child included. If you have the time and energy to hold her with a stuffed animal and rock her to sleep, then it might be easier to give up the bottle. Otherwise, is the bottle really going to warp her for life ? I doubt it. It may not be the best thing in the world, but, if she is loved and nurtured and allowed to grow at her own pace, and she feels safe within her boundaries, and is safe even when she pushes past them and is disciplined, she'll grow up well, and you'll be amazed and honored to be her mom when she's grown.

If YOU want to break the bottle habit, maybe an easy way to start is to have the bottle while reading a book, and have some hugging, quiet time BEFORE bed. Then when you tuck her in, the bottle is already empty and gone. Later, you can keep the story, and the hugs, so there's a bedtime ritual, but no bottle. ??

Hello K.,

Does your daughter like sleeping with her brother? Might work instead of you sleeping with her. Since they share a room. Is there anything else that she is attached to that would help her sleep? A sippy cup? I know that its tuff to get kids off of things. I'm going thru that with one of my children now too. Try to give her a prize for not having the bottle. I know that she might be young but she might understand that if she sleep without the bottle for one night or two you could take her to the store and buy her something special. Not that you have to go and spend a lot or even give her a dollar to put in her piggy bank. Or some arts and craft stuff. Something that she really likes and bugs you for. hope this helps.

M.

What worked for us was switching to a sippy cup. We bought the cheap kind they have at walmart with the rubber tops that almost look like nipples. We did this with both my daughter (now 8) and my son (now 3 1/2). We explained that they were too big for bottles now and it was time to give them up. After we gave up the bottles, we went out and bought them special sippy cups for bedtime. With our son, we let him pick out the sippy cups he wanted (he picked Thomas the Tank Engine cups). They fussed a little the first couple of times but the transition actually went fairly smoothly. Once they were switched to sippy cups, it was fairly easy to cut back how much they were drinking and eventually cut the sippy cup out of the bedtime routine all together.

Good luck.