Night Feeds

I have only JUST managed to wean Jacob off night bottles, and he is almost 1 1/2. He is a big kid, too. In th end, I knew it was just habit, so I had to do the cry it out thing, which was very very hard. One night, I filled his bottle with water, and gave it to him, and when he pushed it away and said "bottle" after downing half of it before he realised it wasn't milk, I just said to him in a very firm mummy voice, "No Jacob, this is your bottle, you are not having any milk, so lie down and get some sleep"... and he did. had to do that for about a week, after a week of scream blue murder cry it out.

Still, you wee girl may be a bit little for that, but you may be able to get her down to one bottle, by just checking on her, not picking her up, making sure she is warm enough and gently saying go back to sleep or something.

Whatever you do, it will be hard, and when she gets sick or teethes it will all change again, and you will be back at square one, that is what I found, anyhow.

Good luck, if I can think of any more advice through my still catching up on sleep brain, I will post again. Also, read the Take back the power support thread, there is a bit in there about sleeping...

If you try giving her water in her bottle in the night, she may start drinking more milk in the day and therefore not wake hungry at night...? Good luck!

I thought of something else I read about in the secrets of the baby whisperer that I did that I found helped was I stopped giving him his night time bottle right before bed,a nd started giving it to him about half an hour to three quarters of an hour before bed, to try to stop the milk/sleep assosiation (I know I spelt that wrong).

I couldn't ignore my crying babies so I kept up with a feed a night until 11mos, at which time I weaned them and they automatically stopped night-feeding. I'm planning to be a bit harder on this one though, apparently once they are 6mos they don't need a night feed but it often can be a comfort thing. I would suggest:

* try to top her up between dinner time and bed
* make a "small" (half-full?) bottle up for the midnight shift and see if you can get her back to bed after just that much
* water at night
* quick cuddle and back to bed - obviously if she cries you'll have to work that out. I would say if she wakes again within 2hrs then she is actually hungry.

i would say if it doesnt bother you then keep going with it. or maybe start with saying she will get a bottle only once. i stopped night feeding toby at 11 months. and 9 mths sounds about right cause thats when they say to start giving solids more than milk...

oo nice Way to go!

We did dream feeds, too. They rock!! I will be starting those early on with this baby!

oooohh really like the sound of "dream feed", Anastasia has slept thru a few nights but only get three or four in a row before we are up at all hours, might try this as well if she is in bed early.