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:

We’ve all seen pictures of Tom and Katie Cruise’s little girl Suri running around with a bottle in her hand and I just don’t understand why. I see it all the time; I see toddlers with bottles or I see two and three-year-olds with soothers, in the mall or in grocery stores and I just can’t help but wonder why?

I think it probably has a lot to do with sleep and that the reason bottles and soother use lingers way longer than they need to is because of sleep associations. If that’s the way your child gets himself to sleep every night, then you’re going to be reluctant to take it away. That would be like taking my pillow away and I love to sleep with my pillow so I’m going to have a hard time getting to sleep without it.

So my guess is that it has a lot to do with sleep but even so, I just don’t understand it — and all the research I’ve done about baby bottles demonstrates that people should start weaning off the use of baby bottles by the age of one.

What I see with my own clients is that if the bottle lingers much past the first birthday, then it becomes habit. I had one client with a two-year-old who fell asleep with a bottle and woke up in the night for a bottle. When I told her we would need to eliminate the bottles and teach her some new ways to get herself to sleep, she said to me “Oh, but Dana, it’s her only vice.” I thought “She is two. Why does she need a vice?” She’s got her whole life to develop vices. She doesn’t need one at two-years-old!

What I think needs to happen at some point as you grow is to be able to self-regulate. If I’m feeling I need to comfort myself or I’m feeling angry, how do I deal with those angry feelings? Or, if I hurt myself, how do I deal with feeling hurt? It becomes a matter of self-regulating. I think that if children are always running off to bottles as their their comfort, then will they not learn this. There’s no real evidence to suggest that baby bottles are harmful, but again, why does a child need a vice?

Also, if you always give your baby a bottle of milk and it lingers past much past the age of one, then some toddlers will think that milk only comes in a bottle. You won’t be able to give them a sippy cup of milk, or a cup; they won’t take it. When I ask my clients why they have a child still on a bottle they often explain that their child won’t drink milk unless it is from a bottle.

So my next question is, why does she need to even drink milk? In infancy, in some form, milk is a baby’s only source of nutrients. So, when they become toddlers, it can be hard to adjust to thinking that now milk is just a beverage rather than the main calorie source. Yes, they do need some fat and they need the calcium – so, of course, most people do encourage some milk consumption through the day. But I also know lots of breastfed children who, once they are weaned from the breast, never drink cow’s milk. They don’t like the taste or they don’t develop a liking for it and they just won’t take it.

So it’s not the end of the world if a child refuses milk. What tends to happen when transitioning from the bottle is what I call a “milk strike.” A toddler might go on strike for a couple of days to make their point that they want a bottle and that’s the only way they are going to drink their milk. Once the child sees that the bottle is not happening anymore, they normally come back around to milk. What I suggest parents do in this case is just offer it with every snack or meal; set down a sippy cup or half a cup of milk. If he or she has little portions of milk dispersed throughout the day and you add it all up, it’s usually enough.

Just keep that in mind if you’ve got babies who are coming up on their first birthday. It probably is time to start weaning to a sippy cup and perhaps make that transition. If you’ve got a baby already accustomed to a sippy cup it won’t be that big of a deal.

I know that not everyone is going to agree with me. Some people think it’s fine to keep the bottle and I appreciate everyone’s opinion and I honor and respect them but as far as I’m concerned, your child should not have a bottle much past the first birthday.

So, that’s it for my rant today. Thanks for watching and sleep well!