Hi! I’m Dana Obleman, creator of The Sleep Sense Program. If you’d rather read than watch, I’ve transcribed the text of this video below.

Imagine having a two-year old AND a two month old… and neither of them sleeping through the night! Rianne writes:

“My daughter is two years and four months old and has never slept through the night. She wakes approximately three times and sometimes more and won’t go back to sleep unless she has a bottle of milk. I’ve got a two-month old baby now who is also waking two to three times a night so I’m really tired and desperate. I need to sort this out.”

We definitely can help this mom sort it out and get some sleep.

If you follow my blog, you know I’m not a fan of two-year olds with bottles. So my first suggestion will be to get rid of the bottle altogether. You need to completely eliminate the bottle from her day, her bedtime and any other time she’s getting one. Switch her to a sippy cup or even go to a normal drinking cup right away.

This mother didn’t say, but I’m guessing that the bedtime routine includes her daughter falling asleep with a bottle of milk, then transferring her to the crib. She may not be falling fully asleep with the bottle, let’s say she’s using the bottle to get 80% of the way to sleep, then gets to sleep the rest of the way on her own in the crib.

The problem with that is that every time she wakes up she thinks that she needs the bottle to get to that 80% level of sleep before she can do that last little 20% by herself. If she’s waking up during the night, she believes she needs the bottle to get back to sleep. Get the bottle, go back to sleep. Get the bottle, go back to sleep. That’s the routine we need to change.

By completely eliminating the bottle from the bedtime routine, you’ll make it clear to her that she’s going to have to find some new ways to make that full journey to sleep or at least to get herself to that 80% level where she can go the rest of the way to sleep on her own.

If that transition is difficult for her, try the “stay-in-the-room” method that’s outlined in my book. In a nutshell, those steps are;

1. – You sit by her crib for three nights while she falls asleep

1. – For the next three nights you move to a chair in the middle of the room

– For nights seven, eight and nine move your chair to the door

By doing it this way, she’ll learn how to fall asleep independently without relying on a bottle.

I’m sure you know how terrible on the teeth it is when they fall asleep with a bottle or use one during the night. It really is just a matter of time until her teeth begin to rot from the sugar. You need to completely break the bottle habit right away.

The good new is that once she learns some skills for getting to sleep on her own, ways that don’t involve sucking or having something in her mouth, she’ll become a great sleeper and will sleep through the night. It’s simply a matter of her learning some new sleep skills.

Let me encourage you to get on board with this approach. If you have a partner, they can and should help out as well. Perhaps you could be dealing with the newborn while your husband takes over training your daughter to get to sleep without the bottle.

You know how a two-year old toddler can be, so prepare yourselves for a two week commitment to this process. She’ll think she needs that bottle and will be persistent and demanding. But you know that she actually doesn’t need it to get to sleep; that it’s just a matter of teaching her how to do to it differently.

Hang in there, don’t give up and don’t give in. She’ll be fine and soon all of you will be sleeping through the night; sleeping well.