How Do I Wean My 13-Month-old of a Naptime and Nighttime Bottle?

Hi L.,

There are different schools of thought out there about when and how to wean babies off the bottle. you have to do what is most comfortable and most doable in your situation, not all parents or kids are the same. I too had my 13 month old taking the bottle at naptime and bedtime...I found it easier to wean him off the nighttime bottle. we had a routine and he always ready to go down. so around 16 months, I started to give him less and less milk in the bottle, from 8oz to 6 to 4. when i got it to 4, i started introducing the sippy cup at night along with his bedtime story...it takes 3 days to break a habit, they say, so by day three, he was on zippy and just had to keep reminding him to drink his milky as i read the story...the naptime bottle was a bit more difficult, but it become clear he was done with the bottle and that his naptime routine was changing...take it as fast or as slow as you need to and don;t worry about what people say. :)

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He's old enought to get off the bottle all together. Give him 3-4- ounces in a sippy cup because you can't find his bottle. Make sure you get rid of all bottles first. You can still snuggle and cuddle with hm before bed. Teach him to brush his teeth after the sipy. Do your teeth right alongside of him. He'll catch on quick.

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You will not mess up your son's teeth by letting my have milk before he goes to sleep. He needs it! It is not OK to give him a bottle to sleep with. If you are feeding him and then taking the bottle before you put him down in his crib, you are doing the right thing. Your little boy really does need that from you.

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Hi L. T, my daughter, her name is L. too, sucked a bottle until she was 4 years old. She only needed it for bedtime, and she is now 25 with a child of her own, and has beautiful teeth. When he is ready to let it go, he will. I would put L. in the bed without it and let her cry herself to sleep. However, Granny would sneak back in the room and give her a bottle. Most times she fell asleep before drinking half of it. I would not worry about it, because he is going to lose his baby teeth anyway. There is no law that says a child has to stop sucking a bottle at a certain age. We sometimes take a drink before bed, so why should it be different for a child? Smile!

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The most effective way to get a child to not need a bottle is to not give it to them. They have to learn how to fall asleep without that aid. Usually, going cold turkey is the quickest way to address this. Same goes for the cup versus bottle - throw away the bottles or put them away and in a short while your child will use the alternatives. good luck it is difficult for a few days.

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Our 16 month old still gets milk (though in a sippy) right before bedtime while we read him his books. But then we brush his teeth so there is no risk of cavities. Just brush his teeth and don't let him fall asleep on the bottle. Then he'll be fine. You do not want cavities in baby teeth as they might affect permanent teeth if the decay gets bad.

We stopped the bottle cold turkey when I found out about the BPA in our avent bottles. Our twins were 14 months old. I guess it helped because there was no going back because the bottles were harmful.After a day they were fine. I used Playtex sippy cups . They have all different stages and they seem to work the best(they invented them :)Good luck you can do it !

My daughter was born in May of 2008 and we had the EXACT same problem. She would not take a sippy at all or milk out of anything but a bottle. We broke her when she was almost 14 months cold turkey. By the third night she was fine. The first night was the worst and she definitely wanted her bottle and cried, but once she fell asleep she was fine. Same thing the next night but not as long.

Good luck!

BTW: Now when we try to rock her to sleep she points at her bed and says "night night". I guess she is breaking us of rocking her to sleep:(

Now that my bottle days are over, oh how I would love to have that experience of giving the nighttime bottle and rocking the baby! My kids had bottles at night until 18 - 20 months with no ill effects to their teeth (one cavity among the 3 and the oldest is 15). I say enjoy it!!!

But if you really want to wean, start with the naptime bottle and once that is accomplished take away the nighttime bottle. Still do everything else at bedtime and maybe add some more cozy time to make up for not having the bottle. Cold turkey is really the only way to go.

Good luck.

L.,

You can try cold turkey, but if that is not working for him, you or both of you, try 1/2 ounce to 1 ounce less for several nights, then keep decreasing it. Some children are just not ready to give up that night time bottle. I believe that most doctors will tell you that as long as it is gone by 18-months they are happy with that. Okay, I know read three different sippy cups, but you might have to keep trying. We ended up with about seven before I found the one for my son. Have you tried the ones with straws? Take and Toss are good. They will be great for later too. I know this doesn't help now, but he will give up his bottle and not drink so much and go to bed without the fuss for his bottle. Relax and enjoy the next months, and know he will give up his bottle.

K.

I personally have never heard milk is not good to give a 13month old. I have an 8yr old and a 3yr old and alway gave them milk before bed, neither has bad teeth. Your baby is only 13 months old and not ready to give up a bottle before bed and that's OK. I got rid of the bottle with both kids when they were a year old, but the one before bed they didn't loose til they were about 15 months. I never gave me kids a bottle in the bed only when I held them, which I wish I could still do. Hang on to this time it goes so fast !

I admit that I gave my now 5yo a bottle of warm milk in bed for about a year. When she was weaned from the breast she needed the bottle. It just made all our lives easier. No teeth problems here. We weaned her pretty easily about the time she turned 2. I have yet to see a kindergartener get on the bus with a bottle among their school supplies so I wasn't too concerned about taking the bottle away so young.

I say make the bottles smaller and smaller to try an wean him. You have to get him off the bottles before he goes to sleep quickly because of the problems it can cause to his teeth. All the sugars can cause tooth decay.
If he will drink water or juice out of a cup try giving him very watered down milk in his cup and slowly increase the amount of milk each time.
When our son started drinking milk he went straight to skim milk. Never gave him whole, 2% or 1% and he grew up fine. He is 6' 2" tall and has a very lean muscular body so going with out the fatty milk did him no harm. There for watering down your son milk to try to get him to drink it out of the cup will not hurt him in any way. He gets his fat from other dairy foods he is eating.
By the way our son is 19 and still drink 3 gallons of milk a week. Loves his milk...
Good Luck,
S.

Stop the bottle cold turkey and you might just be pleasantly surprised! I think a lot of times our children are way more resilient than we give them credit for. And I know some people will say but he's only young once and you'll miss the cuddling! Quite honestly though, this shouldn't be about appeasing your needs to cuddle longer but rather help him know that he can go to sleep peacefully without a bottle because, you're right, as more teeth come in the last thing you want to do is bathe the teeth in sugary milk prior to bed and let the sugar go to work on the enamel.

At 12 months, we tweaked our bedtime routine to mimic our nap routine. The nap routine included going upstairs, 3 songs of rocking, and then putting the baby down drowsy but awake. He didn't need a bottle for nap and was able to go down great for his nap so I thought, there's no reason he can't do this for bedtime either! So we would put him in his pajamas and clean diaper about 15-30 minutes before his bedtime then go back downstairs for the last little bit of playing, except our playing consisted of more quiet activities (sitting on my lap looking at books) with the lights down low, preparing for sleep. Then we would go upstairs and do the bedtime routine and down he went for bed. Before that, he used to get an 8 ounce bottle of milk but we just simply cut it out cold turkey.

I was petrified. I was thinking, oh my goodness I'm going to have a few nights of howling and screaming. Much to my surprise, he didn't skip a beat and went down without a problem. We literally cut out bottles at 12 months cold turkey both at meals and at bed/nap and it didn't bother him at all.

Give your son a chance - he might just pleasantly surprise you!

How about giving the bottle while you hold him, then quickly and quietly brushing his teeth before putting him in the crib. You could add a song or story to the routine after teeth brushing to help with the transition. This way cavities won't be an issue, and you can wait a couple more months before taking the bottle away completely. By then he'll be used to the story or song as the cue to sleep.