Night Time Routine Question

[Anonymous]

I notice a lot of people stating that part of their routine is bath, books, bed. Our son is 10 months and his routine includes bath then bottle - takes about 20-30 mins total. He'll usually drift off while I'm giving the bottle and I'll put him in his crib. As he'll be coming up on a year in a few months, I figure that I'll have to take the bottle portion out of the equation - but that's how I get him to go down. He loves looking at books, but they get him more excited than relaxed. Has anyone else had this routine and transitioned out? I'd be grateful for some input.

[Anonymous]

We sing lullabies after the books to calm DD down. Works like a charm.

[Anonymous]

One thing we did to help DD transition away from the evening bottle, particularly when she was 12 mos and moved to milk, was switch to a sippy cup. The sippy cup had a different sort of appeal than a bottle. Also, day by day we just started putting limits on drinking before bed - slowly we transitioned to it being the first thing as part of her bedtime routine, not the last. Then it was allowed only before going upstairs to get ready for bed. There were some battles, but as with all stages she eventually moved on w/o that last "drink." Although still a little young for your DC, with DD, now 2, we sit and rock together after books and talk about her day. Then she says good night to all the bedrooms (we started this as part of the routine very early on) and pets the dog before getting into her crib.

Good luck - it all works itself out eventually.

[Anonymous]

About 1/2 hour before bed we go up to DS's room-he is almost 17 months. We read books first, then bath, then we get him dressed for bed and he goes down. We found books before bath works better for us, at least at this age. He recognizes we are starting to slow things down.

DS was never really attached to the bottle. We switched to the sippy cup first like PP and then offered it to him before bed, but it never really had the same appeal. Eventually he just drank more milk at dinner and that was it. At 10 months though he still had as much bottle as he needed before bed. I think with the slow transition to the sippy cup it will work itself out. I am remembering now that the bottle in the morning and before bed were the last to switch to a cup though.