Can you please provide examples of your bedtime routines for your 12 months and older toddlers?
My DD just turned one (yesterday :)) and I think we may need to change her bedtime routine a little since the teeth cleaning part often gets left in the dust.
Essentially, she get's a bath, get's dressed for bed, we read a book, and then go sit in her room with a bottle, then if she cooperates, I wipe down her teeth and rock her a little to calm her down and put her into her crib.
There are many nights though when she won't let me wipe her gums because she's so calm and tired she just wants to doze off after her bottle.
Any thoughts on revising our routine? Don't know if at this stage I can give her dinner and her bottle at the same time and then call it a night???
Thanks for sharing your routines too.

i'm sorry i don't have a bedtime routine for you, my ten month old is acctually the same way. her routine is the same and i clean her teeth after the bath and then we rock with a bottle and she refuses to let me clean them again. the only problem for me is she is so used to being put to bed that way i don't know if she'll go down any other way! also i'd like to ask you, have you switched to cows milk now that yours is a year old? i was just concerened on someones daily routine after the fisrt birthday. like what do you feed her and so on...
well good luck with this, i'll be watching this thread as well to get some answers. thanks for posting it! *kristi*

My DS will be 1 yr in 3 weeks and I never even thought about wiping his teeth done! I feel so dumb.
We do, bath, play, book, bottle, bed. There's no way he'd let me wipe his teeth after a bottle, he's practically asleep by then. But then again I never tried.

i think as long as you attempt to clean her teeth once during the day, every few days or so, you're doing pretty good. i almost never cleaned my older daughter's teeth more often than a couple of times a week until she was two and a half.... she's four now and just had her first dentist appointment and got a perfect check up! i wouldn't worry about it. we actually clean our younger daughter's teeth more regularly now but only because the four year old has her routine now and the two year old wants to do everything her sister does!

at around 12 months, the routine was kind of like this (obviously the times varied depending on the day, but we tried!):

dinner around 6
baths around 6:45
bottle with scripture stories around 7-7:15 (depending on how long we played in the bath!)
prayers and lights out around 7:45

now the routine at 2 and 4 years old is more like:

dinner around 5:30-6
baths around 6:30
scripture stories and warm milk around 7-7:15
teeth brushing when milk is done
prayers
lights out around 7:30-7:45
7:50 put the 2 year old back into bed
7:52 put the 2 year old back into bed
7:55 put the 2 year old back into bed
7:56 yell at the 2 year old and threaten 2 year old with the gypsies if she gets out of her bed again
7:59 turn up the monitor and listen for sounds of 2 year old getting out of bed
8:05 huge sighs of relief that no sounds are heard from the 2 year old!!!

seriously, my 2 year old can NOT go to sleep at night without being threatened with being sold to the gypsies! have you ever watched bill cosby himself? i highly recommend it! he talks about how his children can NOT go to bed without their nightly beatings....

ANYWAY.... we only very recently threw teeth brushing into the routine between milk and bedtime and both my kids have healthy teeth. :)

Well, you will probably want to start weaning your baby from the bottle soon. My son is 14 months and I started weaning him at 12 months. We used to do the bottle right before bed but now we do it after dinner. Like you, we also had the problem that we couldn't get to this teeth because he was too tired and wouldn't let us. Our routine is as follows:

Dinner - 5:45 p.m.
Bottle then play - 6:15 p.m. (poops soon after this)
Bath - 6:45 p.m.
Teeth, story, and lights out at 7-7:15 p.m.

The issue is that you don't want your daughter fall asleep on the bottle so that you can brush her teeth. The best way to do this is to do the bottle earlier.


My issue now is not doing the bottle at all after dinner and having him drink all his milk from a cup. Is is going slow.

Kristi, yes I switched to cow's milk right at 12 months. I mixed it with formula for about a week (half milk/half formula) and then went straight to whole milk.


MCR - LOL! "LET THE BEATINGS BEGIN......!"