Happy I personally think it's best to offer meals when they have a good appetite (if at all possible) so if she eats her dinner really well at 2pm I probably wouldn’t move it. What I found with DS is that his biggest meal shifted with age and nap changes. I don't think you need to necessarily change your whole days meals/routine just to drop the BT bottle. If she's fine with a snack at 2pm then dinner later then that's ok, but if not then it's still ok (you might find if you offer her a snack at 2pm she is still hungry and asking for more for example. You might find that the 11am 'lunch' gradually turns into a snack, the 2pm dinner turns into lunch and the 4.45 snack turns into dinner). Very many LOs don't eat well after about 4.00pm and you'll often hear people saying their LOs don't eat well at the evening family meal, because it is quite late and because LOs tend to take most of their daily calories in the earlier part of the day (big breakfast, snacks and lunch). We currently have dinner at 5.30pm and DS eats well but the time has only shifted with his appetite and not related to dropping the BT bottle. When he was 12 months old he had dinner at 5.15pm but we've also done his biggest meal at 3pm after nap wake up for a long time too.
For dropping the BT bottle I would offer a snack plus milk about 1 hr or so before sleep or just before you begin your bed time routine. So supper (snack and milk, no limit on either, just as much as she wants), teeth brushing, bath, pjs, book or whatever your routine is including the BT bottle whilst you gradually wean.
Forgive me for cutting and pasting the following, maybe it will help:
- I introduced a 'supper' which was approx 1hr 10 min before Sleep, so 5.50pm, not very long after dinner. Supper was a small snack like a slice of toast with butter or bread stick plus sippy cup of milk. He could have as much or as little as he wanted.
- I moved BT meds (reflux or teething meds) to during his wind down before going up for bath.
- I reduced the BT bottle by about 1oz and took up a second bottle with just water in. If he finished the bottle (rare for my DS) and wanted more I offered the water. The water was really my safety net, I don't think I ever used it whilst he still had a milk bottle.
- If he took less than the full bottle I recorded how much he had taken and used this as my maximum amount offered the following night.
- I would hold at this amount for a few days if he took it all then reduce by 1oz again
- always noting if he did not finish a bottle then use that as the amount to offer the following night.
I expected to take much longer and for it to be much harder than it was in reality. The oz went down rapidly because with the sippy milk being offered at supper time he was already getting some of his milk.
- I planned to get down to one oz then drop the milk bottle and offer only a water bottle, so that if he had wanted his sucking and cuddle he could still have it but just drink water. However what actually happened was he reduced his BT milk so rapidly that he just took a sip or two and then pushed the bottle away. I held there for a while but he stopped taking any milk so then I offered just water. He just took a few sips from the bottle.
- For a short while longer instead of sitting down (snuggling) and offering the water bottle I asked him if he wanted some and handed him the bottle. This broke the cuddle association. After a little sip he'd hand the bottle back and then we had our cuddle and dance/song so he still had the closeness before sleeping.
- I then changed the water bottle to a sippy cup of water. This I still offer a year later, he sometimes doesn't want any, he sometimes has a sip. If he is poorly or teething he will have a real drink from it but it is still a small amount.
It's ok for her milk to drop a little, she doesn't have to drink the same amount that's she is currently having in the bottle because you still have the morning bottle that's a good size. I dropped the morning bottle about 1 month later by switching to a straw but kept the amount the same.
