I Need Answers........ - Poughkeepsie,NY

I would give him a bottle with water in it at night. eventually he will give it up but he may not be ready as of yet. If you take him off the bottle to soon he may resort to finger sucking which is even a harder habit to break. a bottle with water in it at night will not rot his teeth and he can still have the sucking motion he still needs.

My son gets a sippy cut with water in it every night. It does the trick for when he wakes up in the middle of the night and wants a drink. He is 3.5 years now. The hard part will be getting away from that once he no longer sleeps in pull ups. He will have to stop for night time potty training. But that is still to come. Try the sippy with water. It won't rot the teeth.

Good luck.

S., mom to 3.5 year old son and 5 month old girl.

Sorry to say it but it's high time for your son to be off the bottle. Have him brush his teeth, every night before bed and then only water from then on out. A sippy with water is fine, make sure it is a really good leak proof one, you'd hate to find a wet crib in the morning. He may protest and it may take him a few nights to adjust to the change, but tough it out it is time. Besides you might be surprised that he is only really drinking the bottle because it is there. He shouldn't need to eat at night anymore, but expect he may eat a little more during the day. Good luck!

Hey i went cold turkey too.. i think its the best way.. cut just through the u know what.... at one point i told one of my kids..."oh i forgot your bottles at auntie's house" andi made a big scene about how i couldn't get them.. and she was like oh ok.. i'll take the cup.. but then she was on that thing for ever.. but her teeth are fine!! but then my baby now (2 yrs. old) she was REALLY attached, i mean like 4 to 5 bottles a day!! so i let the milk curd up, look really nasty.. and told her that it was nasty dirty.. and threw them away in front of her.. she still asked for them but i told her "here is the cup" and would just put it on the table.. believe me if they want to drink they'll take it where ever it is!!

Hello,
Well let me start off by saying I understand what your going through, and it gets better. My son was about the same age when we decided it was time to wean him off the bottle. To be honest I don't think that its crucial, b/c my mom said that my brother and I were about 2 when she finally got us off. However I'm sure your feel the pressure from the doctors like we did.

So here's what we did. We took our son's sippy cups and filled them with milk, b/c thats what he was used to drinking before bed. It's hard at first but as long as your consistent it will only take a couple of days. I kept telling my son that the bottle went bye bye to make some other little boy happy, it was all gone and he had to be a big boy now. He would say bye bye, and i said yes. However I never let him drink a bottle in his crib unsupervised but that was me.

We started a thing where we read to him every night and we have a sippy by our side, he takes sips from it periodically, but not even close to how much he used to suck on the bottle.We do still give him a bottle in the morning, but most of the time he doesn't want it. We're actually one step away from having him completely off the bottle. The transition has been very easy. Just stay consistent.

I hope this helps.

My son always went to bed with a sippy cup of water and he has never gotten bottle rote, his teeth are real healthy, so I would say it is safe. Plus with the water there is no sugar or anything to sit on his teeth.

J.

A.,

Try not putting the bottle in crib with him. My boyfriend and I give Cody his bottle let him drink it and then put him to bed. He only gets 2 bottles a day the rest is a cup and he is 16 months old. His bottle at night and in morning. I would love to have him off the bottle all together soon. If you stick with what you are doing it will work out too. All this take time and patience.

I suggest one step at a time. I got my son off of the bottle like this: I slowly replaced one bottle with a sippy cup. When I was up to three a day at home, I slowly replaced each of the bottles one, by one, that I sent with him to daycare. In order to make the ordeal less traumatic I used avent bottles and converted them to sippy cups by replacing the nipple. It worked like a charm. As for the bottle at night he gets water before he goes to bead and that is it. Good luck

I agree that a bottle of water is the right first step. I also think that it's important for you to really be confident and comfortable with the plan. Go into the transition with the attitude that this is what happens now, not hoping that it will work. My girls are 4 and 5 and I remember dreading some of those early transitions- breast to bottle, bottle to nothing, crib to bed, diapers to toilet...so many. I kept being afraid that it wouldn't work. It does if you are committed, confident and caring. You are a great mom and will be successful when you project the confidence that comes with that knowledge.

Why not just give him a bottle of water at night? It's the milk that's causing the tooth decay... not the bottle..

As far as weaning him off the bottle.. that is a separate issue that you can deal with later. Small steps are easier when trying to change habits in kids.

(BTW, I had a bottle at bedtime until I was five, and was shamed into throwing it out by a friend) .. True story..

Just say that you have to give the bottles to another baby (hopefully you know another child who is younger than him that you can use as the decoy) and that since he is a big boy, he isn't going to use a bottle anymore. And like that, cut him off cold turkey. I did this with my daughter around the same time. It took a couple of days and afew whining episodes, but we kept reinforcing that she was a big girl and this other baby needed her bottles. As for the sippy cup in a crib, if it's filled with water, then that shouldn't be a problem. You can't cut off the bottle and a drink in his crib all at once. Eventually, once your son starts potty training, you might want to take the sippy cup away so he wakes up with a dry bed. Hope this works. Good luck.
PS. I just read another response that said to offer a pacifier -- if he doesn't currently use a pacificer, DON'T OFFER HIM ONE. Why end one habit and start another? I am not knocking the other response, but I just think it's silly to start another potentially bad habit.

As I understand it, water in a bottle or cup is fine. Just don't give him anything that has any sugar content at all. That is what causes rotten teeth.

The best thing you can do is slowly take the bottle away. Try to get him to drink the bottle before going to bed, and not in the bed. If he fights the issue then water the down the milk more every night until it's just water, and then move from there to a sippy cup. There are no rotting teeth issues with water. And the sippy cup is not bad for his teeth. Work on switching to sippy cups during the day when's he's not tired and cranky. I suggest trying the disposible ones first because they flow more easily. Then when he's used to those you can give him the ones with a spill proof valve. I know it's not going to be easy, but just keep at it. He might give up that bottle faster then you think.

I am a 'cold turkey' kind of mom. Just get rid of the bottle. At 18 months he doesn't need that anymore anyway.

All of my kids were off the bottle at 1 year. Period. But when they were still getting a night time bottle we always always always even before teeth came in, wiped their gums with a cloth, then older babies got their teeth brushed afterwards.
Daddy would give them the bottle in the rocking chair and he always had the toothbrush ready & nearby with infant paste. When the baby was done with the bottle he reached over for the brush and did a gentle but thorough cleaning without much disruption.

I have seen many kids with 'bottle rot' and once they start school, even pre-school, every single one of those kids have been teased. Please try and avoid heartache when he is older by sacrificing some of your sleep now.
Best of luck.
A.

What happens if you give him the bottle with milk? Have you tried gradually watering down the milk in the bottle until it was all water? Just some ideas to try. :)

Hi!
How about putting water in the bottle instead of milk when he goes to bed? The water won't cause damage to his teeth. If he must have milk let him drink it before he goes to bed. At 18 months suckling a bottle is more of a comfort thing than a hunger/nutritional thing. My daughters drink sippy cups during the day but insist on a bottle of milk before bed and when they wake up in the morning. It relaxes them.

Good luck!

try the Kellymom.com website or Askmoxie.com these women are very knowledgeable. i think water is perfectly fine tho. good luck!

My daughter was the same way, she was on her bottle for way too long and while her teeth never started to rot(I'm sure they would have started soon though), I started her off giving her a sippy with water in it for bed, she wouldn't take it, she wanted her milk so i kept watering milk down a little more every night until eventually it was just water and she was used to it. She still now takes a sippy of water to bed with her everynight.

Giving him a sippy cup with water in it just might be exactly what you need. I've been doing it with my son for a long time. He is 4 now and still will not go to bed without his cup of water available to him right next to his bed. Sometimes they just need the comfort of the bottle/cup and not necessarily the liquid in it. Plus, drinking water is the best thing for him to drink. I'd say you should try it for a trial period and see how it works but I definitely don't think it can be harmful and it sounds like it would help you get the rest you all need.

Sorry, to ask again but did you say the bottle of milk lasts all night. Does he keep it in his mouth all night? The reason I ask is that anyime type of milk that he has in his mouth has sugar in it and this might have the potential to rot his baby teeth. You might want to talk to the doctor about this. Okay, My advice is let him drink his last bottle brush his teeth and tongue before he goes to bed. Read him a book, try to keep his routine to the norm and offer him a pacifier. And when he is asleep take it out. If he cries during the night. Go in his room sooth him, pick him up but don't put that bottle in his mouth again. It is going to be a week at least of this, but he will get use to it. I know you are a working mother (without sleep) and so it will be another week or two. You need to look at this as just another transition your child is going to have to go get over. One of many... Welcome to parenting is never easy, I tell my friends. But you have to do the BEST for your child and getting rid of that bottle is a must. Good Luck and lots of patience;-) Let me know how you make out. S. C.

WHat my doctor told me to do was just get rid of the bottles so that they never see them anymore. Also, although water is safer there will still be the teeth issue with the sippy cup.