Transitioning off bottle

[Deleted]

Apple is just weeks away from turning 1 and I want to transition her off the bottle by her birthday.

She only takes three 8oz bottles a day, one at each nap (2 naps) and one at bedtime. The problems I am going to run into are (1) we put her down with the empty bottle because she won't take a pacifier and it soothes her at night (she is fine without it for naps), and (2) J can't stand hearing her fuss/cry while she learns a self soothing technique and would rather give her the empty bottle. I know I set myself up when we kept giving her the empty bottle at night but it's a habit I've been trying to break for about a month now.

I gave her her first sippy of whole milk today and will be putting her down for nap #1 without giving her a bottle first, this is the easy part...but how do I get her off of the empty bottle at night?

ETA: I forgot about her middle of the night bottle! J gives her a bottle at night, she just gives it to Apple and let's her drink it in the crib while she goes back to bed. I hate that she does this (not good for her teeth, choking hazard, etc) but because I'm a heavy sleeper she is the one who hears her and gets up.

[twotrue]

Since Jelly Bean was BF (with occasional bottles) I really can't remember having to wean her from them. But I do have a suggestion for your night time issue. Does Apple usally wake at the same time? I understand you're a deep sleeper, but perhaps set your alarm for about 5-10 minutes before she usually wakes. This was you can do the night bottle and not have to worry about how J is doing it.

[Deleted]

Sept 30, 2012 21:24:14 GMT -5 twotrue said:

Since Jelly Bean was BF (with occasional bottles) I really can't remember having to wean her from them. But I do have a suggestion for your night time issue. Does Apple usally wake at the same time? I understand you're a deep sleeper, but perhaps set your alarm for about 5-10 minutes before she usually wakes. This was you can do the night bottle and not have to worry about how J is doing it.

She wakes anywhere between midnight and 4am but we've been lucky the past two nights and she has sleep straight through, I hope she keeps it up.

[2brides]

for the empty bottle - what about cutting the nipple down slowly so that there isn't much to suck/chew on/play with.

for the middle of the night, we decreased the amount we gave by an ounce each night and once they (well, Grayson) was down to 1oz, we did water, which wasn't as exciting and he stopped demanding a feeding.

For the daytime bottles, we just made sure they were getting enough solids (food before liquid) and stopped the bottle cold turkey by only offering sippy cups. The bedtime bottle was the last to go. Once they were (more or less) happily drinking from the sippy, we just offered it rather than the bottle.

Good luck!