Weaning off dummies and bottles

Bottles and dummies can play a large part in your child’s early life. They can help your child to feel safe, relaxed and comforted. Weaning your child off dummies and bottles is important and must happen eventually.

Dummies

Using a dummy for too long can cause some problems later. These include:

• tooth decay
• nutritional problems
• speech delay

As your baby grows into a toddler, using a dummy a lot can cause problems. As your child’s teeth push through, dummies can delay speech development. It is important to make sure that using a dummy is limited and ideally stopped when they are 2 years old.

How to stop using dummies

Start by just letting your child use their dummy for nap times and bed time. Try to swap it out for their favourite toy or teddy to hold onto for comfort instead.

It might be helpful to just keep their dummy in certain places, for example in the car or their cot. Try to ask your child to put their dummy away in a special place during the day and then they can get it out for their bedtime.

Once they are using their dummy less, set a date for being ‘dummy free’. Help them by giving them lots of praise, and give them lots of positive attention. For some children who are struggling, they might need reward charts and stickers.

Bottles

Using a bottle to help get your child settled for sleep can eventually cause disturbed sleeping. This can cause more problems and turn into bad habits when they are older.

Using a bottle after 1 year old can cause tooth decay. If children lose their teeth too early, it can cause:

• speech problems
• poor eating habits
• crooked teeth
• damage to later developing adult teeth

When we sleep, our body goes through sleep cycles and at the end of each cycle we wake up a little bit. If your child can only get to sleep by sucking on a bottle, then they will fully wake up and cry until you give them a bottle. They need to learn to self settle and get back to sleep by themselves.

How to stop using bottles

When you are ready to begin weaning away from bottle feeding, (from 6 months of age), begin to use a cup with your child.

Week 1

Replace 1 bottle feed with 1 drink using a cup.

Week 2

After your child has eaten their food, offer a drink of milk or water from a cup.

Week 3

Replace the night time feed with a cup of milk for their ‘sleepy supper’. This can be part of their bedtime routine such as a bath, teeth brushing and a bedtime story.