Letting Your Baby Sleep With Nighttime Bottles: Is it a Bad Habit?
Our one-year-old likes to go to bed with his bottle. Is this okay?
No! Don’t put your baby or toddler down to sleep sucking on a bottle of juice or formula. This can cause tooth decay. When an infant falls asleep, saliva production and the natural rinsing action of saliva slows down, allowing the sugary juice to bathe the teeth all night and contribute to bacterial growth, plaque, and eventually tooth decay; a condition called juice bottle syndrome . If your infant is hooked on nighttime bottles, remove the bottle as soon as baby falls asleep and brush her teeth as soon as she awakens in the morning. Dilute the juice with more and more water each night until baby gets used to all water and no juice – a custom we call “watering down.”
