Change Diaper Before or After Last Bottle?

[Mom to M&M]

Do most of you change your LOs diapers for the night before or after the dinner bottle? Marisa gets her last bottle around 6:45/7pm and we have been changing her after and getting her into pajamas and clean diaper and then bed. However, this gets her upset - she really just wants to relax a few minutes after having that bottle and then do her bedtime routine. So lately, we've been having to save a tiny bit of her bottle to top her off with after getting her changed. But this seems to be becoming a prop and I want to nip that in the bud - what happens when she's no longer on the bottle?

We give her a bath earlier in day, not at night.

If we change her into her clean diaper and pajamas immediately before the last bottle and then hold her upright for about 10 minutes reading to her, etc, is that likely to make any difference in her staying dry overnight? I figure she likely doesn't pee immediately after/during that bottle anyway - so if she's going to leak, she was going to anyway, right?

Any thoughts?

[Jaime]

we always got them totally ready for bed, and then do the last bottle.  jaina never had any problem transitioning to no bottle - we would just substitute with a little cuddle/story time.

haven't gotten there yet with luke as he's still too little, but i'm sure he'll give it up eventually! 

[Duckie]

With Andrew - we did everything else first....bath, diaper, dress, story and the bottle was last.

He's 4.5 now and we still do everything in that order - bath/teeth brushing, dressed, story and he gets a last drink of water (a little one!) before getting tucked in.

[Mom to M&M]

Thanks guys. I think we may have been inadvertently starting to create a "bottle as pacifier" situation as we were feeding her dinner and then getting her ready for bed and then giving her a small topping and putting her right in. Which seemed fine at first but now she's getting upset without that topping before naps and if she wakes middle of night too.

And we don't use a pacifier. DD used to suck her thumb but in the past few days seemed to have "lost" it. Is this likely just normal 4-month sleep bump?

For the first issue, would it make more sense to get her changed and ready for bed, then feed bottle and then read one story (to separate bottle from bed) and then go right in?