Advice for Weaning a 20 Month Old off the Bottle

It's one thing to still be on the bottle at he age and another thing to wake all night for a bottle or milk. You are the parent and she is the child and she needs to be told no more bottle after you go to bed until morning. Then do it. She will be fine in two or three days and the 4 year old will be fine. Tell the 4 year old that if the sister wakes she is fine and to go back to sleep. Won't take long. It's not good for a child to drink all night at this age. As for the bottle in the day that's up to you. I would stop it but that's just my opinion.

I'd say go cold turkey.

At this age it is probably easiest to just go cold turkey rather than drag it out. Yes, it will be hard for a couple of days, but once they are gone, she will forget about them. If she has the bottle even 1 time per day, it could just make her crave it more. I introduced the sippy to my kids before their 1st birthdays and they were completely off bottles by 15 mos. My son was not happy about drinking milk from the sippy (in his mind the bottle was for milk)... so, when we got rid of the bottle for good, he took a few days to start drinking milk from the sippy, we just kept on giving it to him and when he finally realized he was getting the bottle, he drank it! As far as night time, she doesn't need anything to drink througout the night. My kids were all breast fed and slept through the night from 6-12 weeks.... I have a hard time believing it when people say their kids over 6 mos. wake because they are hungry! If they are well fed during the day, they are waking out of habit, over 6 mos, kids don't wake up because they are actually hungry (typically). Just make sure she has had a snack/milk before bed. Then when she wakes, tell her she can have her milk in the morning but it is time to sleep... just be consistant and after a couple of hard nights, she will probably be fine. She just has to learn to soothe herself back to sleep. Good Luck!

Milk in a bottle at bed time is bad for her teeth. There is no easy way to get her to stop the bottle than just everyone just dealing with her not getting one at all. Toss them all away and just go cold turkey.

S.

I let our daughter pick out the sippy cup she was going to "get to drink from".

We talked about sippy cups for big girls.. for a few weeks.. then I told her that on her first birthday, the bottles would all be gone.. Threw them away and never looked back..

Asked her, do you want juice or milk in your sippy cup this morning?

When she asked about bottles, I showed her they were all gone.. I always gave her a choice, which cup? The blue or the red.. Or Juice or milk.. This gave her some control.. But the bottles were gone.

You really do need to get rid of the milk in the bottle, mom. She can end up with a mouthful of cavities. No more milk at night, period!

Apologies to your 4 year old, but I'd let her scream about water being in the bottle, to be honest. Maybe you can put little ear plugs in his ears.

This 5 times a night thing means that she has not learned to self-soothe at all. That's a real problem. You're going to have to bite the bullet and sleep train her.

Figure out which method you want to use. Whichever it is, do NOT pick her up. If you do, then you are substituting yourself for the bottle. She needs to learn to fall asleep on her own. You can either throw away all the bottles so that you don't have ANY to give her, or leave a bottle with water in it, laying in her crib. I would assume that either she will ignore the bottle with water, which means that she is weaning herself from the bottle, or she will switch to the water. I would not bring a bottle to her. By you "giving" her anything when she screams, she is expecting YOU to put her back to sleep. She can find that water bottle in the crib on her own.

At the same time, I think what I would do if I were you is put a chair (something a bit comfortable) in the middle of the room and come sit in there, faced away from the crib, and don't talk to her AT ALL. Just come in and sit. She will cry, but if you do not move, she will finally lay down and fall asleep. Eventually, move the chair closer to the door. She should stop waking up as often because there is really nothing to wake up for. The key is to never go to the crib and interact with her. Whatever you do is giving her a REASON to wake in the middle of the night.

This is hard, but my goodness, you people need your sleep! Bite the bullet and just do this thing, no matter how much she cries. Be 100% consistent - if you aren't willing to keep doing it every single night, don't bother to try. Being inconsistent will just make her cry more and more.

Sending you strength~
Dawn

you simply have to stop giving in....& everybody in the home may pay a price, but her attachment will eventually come to an end.

After working in the dental field prior to having children, I saw 1sthand how using a bottle can be detrimental to the child's dental health....both in promoting decay & in positioning. The same pretty much goes for the sippy cup when it comes to the spillproof cups. The sucking action bumps those teeth forward, & drinking at will (through the day) still provides for increased decay. It's much easier on the child's dental health to have regular cups & periodic drink "breaks".

With my sons & now with my daycare, sippy cups are used only until about age 2. Then the kids are switched over to regular cups fulltime.

& I do have a question: what's in her bottle? You mentioned watering it down, & I was just curious. :)

The older she gets, the harder it will be to give it up. When my youngest was 14 mos, I knew I was going to get a tongue-lashing at the Ped if I didn't have him off the bottle by his 15 mos check up. He previously refused all attempts to give him a sippy cup. One night after the kids went to bed, I took all the bottles & nipples out of our cabinet, and packed them away in the basement. In the morning when he asked for a bottle, I calmly opened the empty cupboard, said, "Oh, look. There are no bottles. The bottles are all gone!" and then poured his milk into a sippy cup. He refused sippys for the first day or so, but since then he's had no problem with them. Actually, now he's pretty much only drinking from regular cups when seated, and sippy cups are only for naps/bed or in the car.

We do a sippy cup during the day, bottle in the evening before bed.

Have you done a sippy cup? If so, put the milk in there.. when giving the bottle.. only put water in it. if she wants milk, then it is in a sippy cup.

Then once she is only getting the bottle in the evening, you can phase that out as well.

Good luck.

I don't think her drinking from a bottle is your biggest issue. Her waking up 5 times a night at 20 months is the issue. I would be giving her real milk or milk/formula as Riley suggested, to see if that would help her sleep better.

My daughter drank milk from a bottle before bed until she turned 3. Her teeth are perfectly straight and healthy. A bottle can do damage when a baby is allowed to carry it around during the day or sleep with it at night. The same damage can be done with a sippy cup, they are no better for teeth than a bottle if overused.

1) Why wean her?

The only difference between a bottle & sippy cup is one "looks" babyish. Who cares what it looks like when it works? There's NO harm in waiting a few months, or even a year. 2.5 is still a VERY young toddler. 1.5 is still
A baby!

2) If she's going through a growth spurt the LAST thing you'd want to do water her milk or formula down. In fact, that's a hint: if she's going through a growth spurt, don't JUST give milk, but give her formula for the added nutrition in addition to her regular meals. The more dense her nutrition, the less hungry she'll be, the less likely she'll be waking Starvin'o'the'Hunger.

2.5) Try a high calories fat & protein heavy meal (actual meal/snack) right before bed in addition to the formula in the bottle. A full belly (with slow digesting fats and proteins) = better sleep longer.

You've got to stick it out for a couple weeks to break her lifetime habits. Read a few sleep books to find out what strategy you want to do. Once you're armed yourself with knowledge, you'll feel better making a stand. She's plenty old enough to sleep through the night and plenty old enough to be without a bottle. I think you know that. It's just doing it that stinks. Everyone might be a little tireder initially, but soon enough she'll get the drift and everyone will sleep better than they have in 20 months :P Also, please do a little research on "high-needs babies" to see if she falls into that category.

I kinda think you're going to have to go cold turkey too. Waking up 5 times a night is extreme and I can only imagine the affect that is having on you and your husband. Eeek. Anyway, it is going to be super hard, but honestly, there isn't much you can do. Get rid of that bottle completely. Throw them all out (or put them in storage if you're planning on another kid) so she can't find them or see them.

Perhaps I would even replace the nighttime stuff with a sippy cup of milk for now just to start the weaning process, but I'm not even so sure about that.

Also, your 4 year old will sleep through more than you think. It might take a few nights where she wakes up when the little one cries, but she'll quickly learn to sleep through it.

Can you move the older child for a week, carefully explaining that this is just for one week till baby learns to sleep thru the night. Put 4 yr old on a sleeping bag on your floor.
As others have said your 20 month old needs to learn to self soothe.