19 Month Old up 3 Times a Night

Sounds like she may be teething? her 2 yr molars perhaps? My 2 yr old went through something similar at around 18 -24 months. After sleeping well for the longest time she started getting up constantly throughout the night. I am now 9 months pregnant and was exhausted then at 7 months pregnant. But after one day when she was laughing, I noticed 2 of her molars had come in and that clued me in to what it must be keeping her up. Now that they are all in she is sleeping soundly through the night again. As for the bottle, if she is teething and in pain sometimes they go for a comfort thing like a bottle to make them feel relaxed. But I have read that the sucking motion is painful when teething. Good luck. I hope you get some sleep filled nights soon.

Hi N.,

It is possible that your little one is dealing with teething at this age.

At 19 months, she does not need a bottle at night and allowing it may form a habit that is hard to break the longer you go along with it. It is up to you whether you want to allow this. Sometimes when you offer only water and not milk, they stop looking for the bottle. Also make sure that she has enough to eat during the day - a growth spurt could be the culurit

As for crying til you take her into your bed, she may genuinely need comfort but at this age, you are no longer dealing with an infant and there is some manipulation involved. If you don't mind having her in your bed, that's fine but if you do and want to put a stop to it, there is no easy way to do it - there will be crying/screaming/loss of sleep so it is up to you which you think is the lesser of the two evils.

Good luck!

You have to stop the bottle AND the bed situation. Until you do, it'll never end.

It really sounds like a habit/behavior. My mother always told me to never bring the children into your bed, you will never get them out. I know its really hard, but sometimes you have to let them cry and learn to self sooth. We went through the same thing with my son, now 5 years. It was 5 days of hell, but we got through it and now its great. Good luck.

I have a nineteen month old son and he was never a good sleeper and he still is not! We have the same problems: crying for his milk bottle in our bed! I had the similar advices from some friends but I could not do the crying thing! His lips turned blue once and that scared me a lot! Unfortunately it is getting very uncomfortable for both of his dad and me to take a good night sleep! I am a stay at home mom and I have to take a nap with him during the day so I can function! i have read the responces and decided to give it another try. I don't have any answers to you as I am in the same boat. I just wanted to share it with you.

Good luck to you as well and let us know about how it went!

You are an experieced mom! Sounds like you know that for a time she needs to be with someone. Any thoughts on putting her in with a sibling? Sometimes that is easier on the parent as little ones are harder to wake, and like the company. This is when I tell myself, you love your baby and she is getting everything she needs, so let her scream.

It sounds like she might be getting one or more of the teeth in the back. The molars are particularly painful when they come in and you don't actually see them until they cut through. You might want to try a little ibuprofen before she goes to bed and see if that helps get her through this rough patch. If it helps with the teeth and the sleeping, you can go back to weaning her during the day from the bottle. I used the cups with the built in straw - similar sucking action. I also sweetened the deal by giving them strawberry or chocolate milk in the cups so they looked forward to getting the cup. After they got off the bottles, I scaled back the chocolate/strawberry flavor a little at a time until they were happy with just milk in a straw cup. Good luck!

Give her the bottle before you put her down for the night. Eliminate all other bottles. It will NOT be easy, but it HAS to be done, for your sanity. When she wakes up in the middle of the night, go in and comfort her, but you might have to let her cry. Let her cry for a few minutes and go in and comfort her some more, and make it longer before you go in the next time. It's the most difficult thing that you will ever have to do, and it will take a week or two before she stops waking up, but it will be well worth it in the long run. And don't worry, she won't remember it.

We had to do it with ours and it was the worst 10 days of my life, but now she asks to go to bed and sleeps through the night and on the rare occasion she does wake up, we go in and give her a kiss and she goes right back to sleep.

Maybe you could put water in the bottle instead of milk so it's not as enticing and also decrease the amount of water each night in the bottle until there's none in there. Maybe she won't ask for the bottle if she doesn't like what's in it. I tried several strategies including Ferber and a "kinder, gentler Ferber" where you move closer and closer to the door and out of the room to get my 2 girls to sleep in their own bed. My younger daughter also loved the aquarium toy by Fisher Price and uses it to get herself back to sleep in the night. She still uses it in the toddler bed. A white noise machine might help too especially to keep her from disturbing your older children if you decide to do Ferber or something similar.
Good luck!
M.

I suggest letting her cry it out. It might take a few (sleeepless) nights, but she'll start sleeping through the night. And she will be fine without the bottle. It may be that she wants your attention more than the bottle anyway. Our son was sleeping through the night without drinking just after 3 months. He still wakes up at night sometimes, but we never give him anything to drink (unless he is or has been sick). And we took the bottle away at 12 months, he only drinks out of glass now. good luck.

my best friend got her son off the bottle by mixing formula with milk and giving that to him. after a few weeks he was only drinking milk. try sippy cups, i went through so many untill i found one that my son would drink from. as far as the waking up all night, tough love, might be hard for a while but, i found it works. let her cry, if you know nothing is wrong, let her cry. this is only forming a bad habit that you will regret later.