How to Get Your Baby Off the Bottle at Night
Maggie is a psychologist and mom of five kids who successfully weaned her children from their bottles.
Those Precious Milk Bottles
Weaning Your Child off the Milk Bottle
It is common advice to terminate your baby'due south milk bottle suddenly, at the age of one. At to the lowest degree, that is what many pediatricians and well-meaning friends and family unit often suggest. This is also the commonly-held view espoused in many parenting books.
The problem is that taking away the babe'due south canteen all at once is brutal and unnecessary. Babies and toddlers learn how to soothe themselves by sucking on their bottles, and this is a good thing. Many moms report that once they took the canteen abroad, their child never drank milk again.
A Humane Approach
Notwithstanding, do non be in a big hurry to rid your home of milk bottles. There is no evidence that they increase dental or other problems. In fact, allowing your young ane to self-soothe has many long-term benefits. (Please note that I am not advocating for allowing your child to doze off while continuing to nurse on the bottle for a prolonged menstruum.)
Three of my youngest children took quite a while to allow go of their "night friend." I am happy to study that despite the slowness of this process, none of them ever wanted to bring their canteen to school or on playdates or sleepovers. They have excellent dental records with zero cavities and no orthodontic work! They also accept no "oral fixations"—one doesn't recall much at all about food and drink, one likes to eat, and the last one is in the middle of the other ii.
How I Successfully Weaned My Children From Their Bottles
1. Beginning at the age of one, do not take the bottle abroad just do begin to subtract the number of daily bottles. For example, each month drop one of the daytime bottles (e.g., the mid-morning ane).
Most toddlers (I am defining toddler as age 1) volition not really notice or care besides much about this, particularly if they are decorated doing an interesting action, or if they are having a snack.
Provide a sippy cup of h2o, juice or milk in place of daytime bottles. A small-scale cup I really like is the 2-handled NUK Winnie the Pooh 5-ounce cup that is sold in stores and on Amazon.
Go along this for a couple of months, then drop a second bottle (e.yard., the afternoon canteen). Follow the same technique above: Requite a sippy cup, distract with activities and snacks, etc. Be prepared: This unabridged phase could go on for 3-iv months.
At this time also, y'all should be increasing the amount of milk that your toddler drinks each day, via regular cups, milk boxes or sippy cups. Be sure to add a nice container of milk just earlier bedtime.
Innovate the Idea of "Look for Slumber to Come up"
2. When your toddler is downwards to having merely his or her nighttime bottle, slowly subtract the amount of milk in the bottle each night. Subtract the amount very slowly; for example approximately an ounce per dark, for a week or so. Continue decreasing the amount of milk in this manner. Brainstorm keeping a sippy loving cup of h2o or a dixie cup of h2o side by side to your toddler's bed.
Read More From Wehavekids
If your toddler has trouble falling asleep, tell him or her to "wait for sleep to come up." My then two-year-old daughter discovered the concept of closing her eyes and waiting for slumber, and she has passed on this simple but remarkable (and true) phrase, "wait for sleep to come," to her other siblings!
Night Fourth dimension Demands
3. Gentle Reminders: If your toddler wakes up at night and demands a canteen, gently tell him or her that there are no middle of the night bottles. Offer to prevarication down with him or her, and offer a sip of water from the loving cup. This stride could take a few months, but information technology may work faster than that.
Bedtime Routines Assist Kids Sleep
iv. Make sure to establish soothing night routines to ease your kid into sleep more than quickly: A pre-sleep snack, a dimly-lighted room, some calming music and of class a bedtime story with a cuddly stuffed fauna are all ways to encourage drowsiness. Don't forget to keep the small drinking glass of h2o next to the bed!
5. Reward your kid for a task well done! It is a good idea to reward your toddler along the fashion with a small treat, privilege or other goody for decreasing their night milk bottle. Do this too when your child finally lets go of their nighttime water canteen, if those have been necessary. Children are just like adults in that they respond well to this type of positive reinforcement.
If You Need Additional Help
six. Here is a great read that can help you at bedtime: In her excellent book, "The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Means to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Nighttime," author Elizabeth Pantly explains how to humanely get your immature i to cease his or her reliance on the milk bottle.
The data in Pantly's book is wonderful, regardless of your child'due south age—the techniques still work. This book helped my family, with all kinds of sleep issues.
A Final Annotation on the Importance of Patience
Please have patience: Children practice not remain attached to their bottles for very long (in the long run). Your child may have some problem letting become of the bottle, but in the end they will recall with happiness their bottle-drinking days!
This content is accurate and true to the best of the writer's knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized communication from a qualified professional person.
Lisa Musser from Kansa, USA on September xvi, 2014:
I liked how you gradually replaced the daytime milk bottles with cups, rather than just taking the bottles altogether. Much better for the child and no long tearful pleas for bottles at bedtime.
Jodie Fisher on January 02, 2014:
Thanks for this. My 11month old yet has near three bottles of formula a day and has 7oz at bedtime (falls asleep with bottle then dummy) then wakes twice in the night and has a couple of ounces each time. Not certain how to interruption the habit :(
Source: https://wehavekids.com/parenting/How-to-Humanely-Wean-Your-Baby-or-Toddler-Off-of-Milk-Bottles-at-Night
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