Honest moms: bottle Q

BumbleBee9311

Hey-
I'm not looking for a "why I'm the worlds best mom" reply. This is a real question: how many of you still give your kids a bottle before sleep times? My daughter is so attached to the bottle and after just transitioning her into daycare I was scare to make too many changes. Any recommendations on what to do or are you guys letting this slide for a while too?

acbfreire

DD is not taking one anymore (still nurses, though), but I don't see a big deal. Is she getting her teeth brushed afterwards? That would be the only issue..
Don't change everything at once, if you can.

FutureMrsFezz

Cold turkey.

unaveragejane

I think dropping bottles was worse for me than for DS. He actually took to it pretty well. What worked for us was having a solid bedtime routine (where he didn't fall asleep on the bottle). When I felt like we needed to stop the bedtime bottle, I replaced with with a sippy cup of water. Obviously DS didn't drink as much like that, but he didn't need to since he was getting plenty of calories during the day. It was a habit more than anything for him. I also place the sippy cup in the bed with him so he can drink water if he wakes up thirsty. He seemed to kind of wonder what happened to the bottle for a night or two, but it didn't mess up his sleep like I had worried it might.

PhantomPower

We dropped cold turkey a couple weeks after his first birthday. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Do what feels right for you and your family! 

BumbleBee9311

I really appreciate your honest thoughts! Daycare gets her to sleep w/o the bottle but she also doesn't drink much out of the sippy. I am going to try and transition her out of the bottle by doing a sippy and a bottle, and increase the amount in the sippy and reduce the amount in the bottle until I can just have water in the bottle.

JessieCupcake

FutureMrsFezz said:

Cold turkey.

Same for us. It wasn't fun and I felt bad but it worked.

BumbleBee9311

I think I'm headed there if this smooth transition I designed doesn't work out

thatoneredhead

I think I will do only water in his bottle MOTN and then cold turkey. We will work on this soon. 

misthang_1

Meh...she still gets a bottle before bed and in the morning.  My son did too at this age.  And she is still getting formula, due to her milk allergy (I give her half Alimentum and half lactose free milk).  It's pretty much the only "milk" she gets all day, so I am totally fine with it (she loves drinking water from a sippy).  With my son, I just replaced the bottle with a sippy around 16 months...but that was only because his little sister was coming.  He was fine with the switch, but still has a sippy of milk at night before he goes to bed and he's almost 3.
I've taken a very relaxed stance with these sorts of things (i.e. quitting the bottle, potty training, etc) and it has worked really well for us.

laurendom

DD still gets in the morning and at night.  She loves it, I weaned in July and she did ok, but loved to nurse, I let the bottle slide for a while.  She loves straws and sippy cups, but still enjoys a bottle. I don't let her have it to fall asleep though. With LO #2 on the way, I think by end of October I will drop the morning and the night one soon after, just so I can have a good 6 months or so without her seeing the new baby with one.

emberlee3

DD still gets a bedtime bottle.  She is dairy-allergic, and she won't drink her formula from a cup, so during the day, she only drinks water.  She eats constantly to get enough calories from food alone; I give her the formula to ensure she is getting some calcium.