My DD just gave up bottles at 2.5. They lingered so long for the simple reason that I couldn't be bothered to deal with it all
. By the time I pulled it she was only on one bottle a day as she had dropped her nap already. I think at just over 2 she stopped having me give her the bottle and started wandering all over with it
. But she did love her milky bottle so much at that point.
By Christmas I noticed she wasn't really sucking it like a baby anymore - more drinking like a sippy and a certain amount of biting and fiddling with the teat.
So I told her Elf wanted her bottle for babies, and she had lots of lovely new big girl things. She asked why every 15 minutes for about 3 days, then admitted defeat and now drinks out a sippy instead. She uses an open cup usually now, so the sippy is just so I don't end up with milk on my carpet from a floppy tired toddler
.
It was actually very similar to DS except he was younger - 22 mths - and I told him his bottle was mucky and he needed to have a clean cup instead.
Anyway - I guess what I am saying is that at around this sort of age they do kind of allow it to be dropped really.
Megan was def using her bottle as part of her calm down as well. TBH we have had some rough bedtimes this last month - not directly related to the bottle but I do wonder now if that hasn't helped - just a very tired, awkward, opinionated 2.5 year old thing. I have just separated her bedtime from DS and am back to doing a story in her chair and that seems to be helping a lot. They do need something to calm down I guess. DD had her bottle in the dark directly before sleep until she was about 2! And was BF to sleep as a baby as well. In never affected her night sleep or ability to go to sleep, so I never did anything about it before.
Hang in there, soon those bottles will be all gone. Would she buy a story as to where it went?? Seems I did this with both of mine
.