Bottle at bedtime

[Lovemy2boys25]

My 15 month old son still takes a bottle of milk to go to bed(he drinks a sippy cup during the day bottle only for sleeping) but my peditrican told me I have to stop giving him a bottle completely because its affecting the way his teeth are growing and I want to stop anyways because I dont want his teeth to rot... But im not sure how to go about it... I cant just let him cry it out because me, him, and my 3 month old share a room so he would keep his brother up all night too! Its hard to rock him because he is almost 40 pounds and I don't have a rocking chair... And when the baby wakes up I have to stop rocking him and tend to the baby. Me and my boys dad currently dont live together, he comes over on his days off so for 2 days I have help but the rest of the week I'm on my own so any advice on what to do would be greatly appreciated!! Thank You!

[newmamalizzy]

Just to clarify - does he take the bottle to bed with him and use it as a comfort thing to put himself to sleep, or do you put him to sleep by giving him a bottle in your arms (like nursing to sleep), and then put him in his bed fully asleep? 

I don't have a lot of experience with the former, but for the latter, I think you will need to think of this as a slow process of transitioning to other ways of falling asleep.  For the record, I still give my 2.75 year old a night-time bottle, but she doesn't fall asleep to it anymore, and doesn't need to.  At some point in her second year she stopped falling asleep to the bottle, and by necessity we had to develop some other ways to help her sleep.  At first this was lying next to her, singing and patting/rubbing her back.  So, I guess for you I would suggest giving the bottle in a way that won't put him all the way to sleep and then....well, you'll have to see what works for you and for him, but if you can use this to help him learn to fall asleep in his bed, all the better, right?
 

[Lovemy2boys25]

He goes to sleep drinking the bottle in his bed... His peditrican said no bottle at all anymore ever because its messing up the way his teeth are growing... Last night I gave him his cup instead of a bottle he cried alot so I rocked him for a little bit then put him back in his crib gave him his cup and left the room and he went to sleep, but he woke up crying a lot so I know its going to take some getting used to, for both of us. I'm going to try to start giving him water in the cup once he gets used to it at night and that way he's not drinking milk cause I've heard that will rot his teeth or maybe he won't want the water so he will just go to sleep without anything... but I'm just worried that he won't go to sleep without milk because he's so used to it...

[sageowl]

Although my son quit breastfeeding at around one year, and lost interest in his pacifier around the same time, he was slow to give up his nighttime bottle (he didn't give it up fully until around 2 for the record). 

I remember around that around the 12 month mark, it seemed like everyone was harping on how he needed to stop using bottles, but he was NOT ready, and would NOT drink out of any type of cup--it had to be a bottle, although he got to the point where it didn't have to be milk.  It was so hard to get him to go to sleep at that age, I wasn't going to do anything that might make the process worse (I really needed that time in the evening to grade papers, so I couldn't embark on a lengthy extended bedtime project involving a battle of wills over a bottle). 

For the record, the sky didn't fall in as predicted, he DID give that bottle up eventually without a lot of crying and drama, and his teeth did straighten out on their own (even if they hadn't, they all fall out anyway in a few years, so I would not lose sleep over that one).  Needless to say, I didn't win the Parent of the Year Award, but I'm sure not crying about it.

These are the stages I went through to wean off it--gradually! 

I never did bottles in the bedroom, but I was breastfeeding him to sleep for awhile.  You might try giving that last bottle somewhere other than the bedroom, then go into the bedroom when done.  (break the association between the room and the bottle).  Towards the end there, we did milk, then I read him a couple of books, then it was off to bed.

Gradually reduce the amount of milk given at bedtime until it's negligible.  Offer water instead (in the beginning you'll need to have a bottle of milk and a bottle of water).

Do an after dinner but before bedtime milk (a couple of hours before bedtime).  If you can get him to take it from a cup instead of a bottle, so much the better.  Offer only water at bedtime if needed.

Eventually the bottle of water loses it's appeal, and you can probably eliminate it, or switch to a sip of water from a cup.

[Lovemy2boys25]

Last night, today for his nap, and tonight for bed time I gave him his cup instead of a bottle last night was rough but tonight was alot better, I kept him up a little later than usual and bathed him a little later than usual and then I put him in his bed with his cup and left the room and took my 3 month out of the room with me and he went to sleep without a problem!! My plan is once he gets used to the cup at night instead of the bottle I'm going to replace the milk with water and im hopeing he will do okay with that but either way im sure he will get used to it.

[sageowl]

Good luck, hope everything works out great!
 

[Lovemy2boys25]

My boyfriend came over on his 3 days off and from day 1 he had him in bed with no cup or anything with no problem. So now for 3 days hes been going to sleep for nap and bedtime just fine without a cup or anything and has had no problem... I didn't know it would be so easy, I baby him, daddy doesnt, so im glad he was here cause I never would have tried stopping it cold turkey cause I thought he would freak out...