What’s the Right Time to Potty Train/Sleep Train/Wean Off a Bottle?

Is it a good idea to use the break to potty train/sleep train/wean off a bottle or pacifier?
Anonymous

Interesting question!

First: not sleep training unless it happens to overlap with what you think is the right time to do that. You should base the decision about when to sleep train on when you are ready to do it and when you think it is good for the baby, not on having some extra time (among other reasons, because it doesn’t really take extra time).

I’d say a similar thing for weaning off a bottle or pacifier. Is this the right time, for other reasons? Then try it. A caveat is that if you’re around family members, they may make the transition (ditto for sleep training) more challenging. I am hearing in my head, “Oh, but she really wants a bottle. Poor thing is going to sleep hungry now.” This is probably not going to help.

The strongest case here is for potty training, since at least some potty-training approaches benefit from concentrated time walking around the house naked. When we were potty training my younger child, I recall coming home from work in the middle of the day several times because my presence was required for certain … ahem … activities. It would have been easier to do this on a holiday, for sure. Having said that, potty training takes time for many kids, so imagining you’ll start on December 23 and then be good to go, fully trained, by January 3 is possible but optimistic. The main answer, then, is: maybe. I wrote more on this, if you’re interested.