Nursing or bottle to sleep

Milk and sleep is a very strong association.

If your child is relying on you to be nursed to sleep or is using a bottle to fall asleep, this is called a "sleep crutch." A sleep crutch is something that kids come to rely on and MUST have in order to fall asleep. When they have a sleep crutch, they cannot be solo sleepers. So, the first step in independent sleep is going to be removing the sleep crutch.

In addition to being a sleep crutch, nursing or bottle feeding to sleep also causes disturbances in the natural pattern of sleep as our kids get older. See, kids fall into REM (deep) sleep very quickly. So, when kids does off for a for a few minutes (or even a few seconds!), their sleep tank gets filled just enough to give them some energy so they don't feel tired any more and they can fight sleep even harder. You've probably seen this if you're driving home for nap time and your child doses in the car and then refused to sleep. I call this a crap nap. Basically, that short little snooze has ruined what should have been much longer, consistent sleep. So, they key is getting your child to fall asleep alone in their bed so they can stay there and sleep.

The first step in breaking the nurse-sleep or bottle-sleep association is to shift the way YOU think about food. For our toddler, think about food the same way you think of it for yourself. Food is nourishment to keep our bodies healthy and strong and we eat food during the day while we're awake usually sitting at a table. That's the way you should think about it for your kids, too. Food is for eating during the day. The purpose is to give you calories, not put you to sleep. 

So, move all feeding to a well-lit room when your child is awake and alert and able to consume all the calories they need. If you think they need a bottle after dinner, that's fine. But do that in the kitchen before you go up to brush teeth. Once they're in their room for the bedtime routine, there should be no need to eat any more. Instead, you will be replacing the bottle with the steps in the Excellent Bedtime Routine that you and your child put together. 

You can tell your child that there will be no more bottle at bedtime and you can even have them say goodnight to the fridge & the milk as the first step in their bedtime routine.