We are proud to say that these posts are not sponsored. Our editorial team of Bobbie moms and writers personally select each featured product. If you buy something through our links, we may earn an affiliate commission, at no cost to you.
If you are wondering if it’s time, it’s probably time.
Toddlers are notoriously tough to wean. They love their “baba’s” filled with their favorite milk or formula. But, the older they get the more attached they become to that comforting bottle of milk at bedtime and the more reluctant we sleep-deprived parents are to rock the boat. We can try wearing them out by walking them around the block in their comfy stroller or indulging in a quick drive hoping they’ll fall asleep in their cozy car seat. But this just wears us out first making us more reluctant to rock the nighttime bottle boat.
So, I’ve gone and gathered a list of tips from online resources, friends, and experts, and put them to the test in a bid to finally get my four-year-old daughter to give up her beloved nighttime bottle. Some were more successful than others. As you can see… IT HAS BEEN A JOURNEY. You should know, that these tips aren’t the same as the ones you’d apply to a one-year-old, whose habits are not yet ingrained and are much easier to adapt.
Why does weaning a toddler off their night bottle matter?
Well, weaning your toddler off their nighttime bottle is important for a few reasons. Healthychildren.org suggests your child be weaned off their bottle between the ages of 12-18 months for reasons like possibly reaching an unhealthy weight and inviting power struggles with your toddler. Added to that, long-term, bottles can:
- Impact teeth health /speech development
- Derail potty training at night, causing more bedwetting and night-waking
- Provide too much milk/dairy at the wrong time
What tricks worked and what didn’t:
1. Glass of milk with dinner instead of bedtime bottle.
This was a disaster, honestly, despite being the most highly recommended online. My daughter loves a glass of milk over dinner but anytime we tried explaining that she didn’t need a bottle because she already had her glass of milk, her protests would bring perfectly good family dinners to a stressful halt. Some nights she’d drink the glass and was fine until the time came to get into bed. “Where’s my bobbie?” she would ask. Let’s be honest, a child doesn’t understand “hindsight!!”
Why this bombed: We were too weak as parents and gave up after one week.
2. Make it “Yucky.”
This worked like a charm. A friend told me to start watering down the bottle of milk a lot so that my daughter came to that place herself where she simply didn’t like it.
The first night we did half and half, she still pounded the bottle down.
On the second night we did 25% milk and 75% water, she noticed and complained it wasn’t nice but still drank it.
Third night, 10% milk and 90% water and she couldn’t drink it, turning it away saying it was “yucky.” We let her watch us pour the milk from the carton she loved, but little did she know that the carton itself had been diluted.
Why this bombed: After spending a week with her grandparents she was back to whole milk in the bottle.
3. Return from holidays to NO bottles.
This was one of my favorite tips. We were in Palm Springs for Easter with friends and we told our daughter that when we returned all the bottles would be gone.
The story was simple. The Easter Bunny came and took them all for little babies because now she was big enough to have chocolate and not bottles. (She was three). We came back from the trip and she ran over to the “dump drawer” with all her bottles and blankies to find that all the bottles had in fact left the building. (We secretly packed them all away before leaving.)
While she struggled for two or three nights she quickly got used to the idea that bottles were for babies.
Why this bombed: Two months later we had another baby and more bottles came back into the house, hence she was given them again at bedtime.
4. Saying they’re just for babies:
The easier part of doing this with a 4-year-old is that she wants to “be a big girl” no matter what. Everything I read online about this method felt cruel and like shaming, but it’s really just sharing the reality with her that she is truly now “a big girl!”
The plan was we’d show her photos of babies drinking bottles and big girls drinking sippy cups. We also would ask her friends “Do you take a bottle to bed?” When they said no it was usually followed with, “I’m a big girl, I don’t drink bottles anymore.”
Why this worked: Hearing it from others definitely helped. It wasn’t long before she completely stopped asking for the bottle and went to bed happily without.
Bottom line
Weaning a toddler off their comfort bottle is a series of trials and errors. There’s no sure solution as all kiddos are different and you’re never sure what’s going to stick with your child. However, if you can avoid some of the problems we encountered, you may have luck earlier in the process.