Bottle Feeding Help

Babies like to feed until they fall off to sleep, no matter if they are feeding by breast or bottle. In fact, many toddlers need to have a feeding before they go to bed so that they don’t wake up hungry until morning. There are a couple of problems with giving your baby nighttime bottles.

Your baby always associates going to sleep with the bottle, just as the breastfeeding baby associates sleep with breastfeeding. Babies associate sleep with feeding and the object or person a baby associates with going to sleep is the same that the baby expects in order to get back to sleep.

The trick here is to keep the babies asleep by offering them various things to associate with sleep so that they don't get hooked on one. The bottle or breast works so well for sleeping that the parent can get into a sort of rut as well as the baby because they stick with what is working.

Doing this is okay if you're going to offer the same prop every time the baby wakes up. But if you want baby to learn to resettle himself without the bottle in his mouth or hands you will have to switch it up. For example, give him his bottle in a rocking chair, and then help your baby snuggle to sleep with one arm around a teddy bear and the other around something else.

When the baby wakes up, cuddling the bear may be enough to resettle him on his own. Or, you can use a specially shaped snuggle helper for baby to nestle his head into. A solo sleeping baby may need this more, since he doesn't have people around him.

Nighttime bottle safety

Sending your baby to sleep with a bottle in his mouth may damage the teeth which is what doctors call bottle mouth. You should never do this. If you want to ease baby off the nighttime bottle, try watering the formula down, or better still give him water.

If you prefer to water down the formula, gradually dilute the bottle contents with increasing amounts of water until baby figures out it's not worth waking up and fussing for a bottle of water. Though it is tempting to leave a bottle in the crib with the baby when you have to feed him at 2:00 a.m. don't do this!

Not only does this really help to contribute to tooth decay, your baby can choke with no one there to help. Don't let your baby sleep with a bottle of milk or juice. Bottles are not good for your baby's teeth. Do not soak pacifiers with honey either.

When your baby falls asleep, saliva flow decreases, which lowers the baby’s natural rinsing action on the teeth. The honey will coat the teeth. Plaque and bacteria will use this to eat your baby’s teeth. If a baby is hooked on the nap or nighttime bottle, try watering down the juice or milk, each night diluting it a bit more until it's all water.