How to quit bottle feed during night

[FionaN]

My girls is 15months old, she eat her dinner at 6pm and will have a bottle before she go to sleep around 8pm. But she still wake up every night around 2-3am for another bottle.

I don't mind to feed her during the night, but just worry is really bad for her teeth ?

any advise ?

Thanks a lot !
Fiona

 

[sherwes]

You don't mention how much your baby drinks at the 2-3am feed but one thing you could try is just to decrease the amount you give her slightly every few days. The should stimulate her appetite for breakfast so she will make up for the missed bottle by eating more during the day. You should get to a point in a few weeks where she is only drinking a very small amount and, at that point, you could drop the bottle altogether. The only problem is that she will be in the habit of waking up at that time so, even if she isn't hungry, she will probably still wake up and want some attention from mummy!

The other option, if you don't mind giving her a bottle but are only concerned about her teeth, is to just give a bottle of water rather than milk.

 

[lesliefu]

I would suggest giving her a little more to eat at her 8pm feeding so that she feels more full. if she is really drinking a lot at 2-3am still after this, then I would try sherwes way and give her water instead (or diluted milk) which is what I give my daughter if she wakes up (about once a week).

good luck!

 

[FionaN]

She eat a lot for dinner, she also drinking almost a full bottle at 8pm, I also try to put some rice cereal in the milk suggest by our doctor, but she still wake up every day.

I try water before, but she push the bottle away.

But I will try to decrease the amount she drink for the next few weeks, too see if we can drop the bottle soon.

Thanks a lot !

 

[MLBW]

Hey Fiona,

I think your girl may be having a growth spurt--especially if she has started drinking a second bottle at night within the last few months.

My son is 16-months-old and a friend came to visit us a couple of weeks ago and said, "Is it just my imagination or has your son been eating the entire time I've been here?" It wasn't his imagination!

Right around 12-14-months-old he went from eating very heartily to kind of being picky and pokey about what he wanted to eat--so we were really concerned about him because some days he really would only eat a few crumbs all day long!

Then about 2 months ago (15-months-old) he just started having this amazing appetite. He would eat a solid breakfast (if it were French toast for example, he would eat 2-full pieces by himself and maybe some extra fruit!), lunch (usually rice with meat and veggies--at least 1-2 cups!) and dinner (whatever mommy and daddy were eating--but again, just as much as at lunch!). And then he was having snacks in between--fruit or some type of grain snack and lots of water (we don't let him drink juice) to wash everything down. Clearly, he was eating and drinking enough during the day.

Then he would have a 10-ounce bottle of milk before sleep and wake up at 2-3 in the morning wanting another bottle. We tried what we had been doing previously--just let him go back to sleep on his own because in the past his waking was just habitual waking. But after 5-10 minutes it was clear by his cries that he was actually hungry--not wanting to play. He had a "desperately hungry" cry going on. So, we fed him another bottle and he sucked down another 10 ounces! And got up the next morning at 7-8 am ready for a big breakfast again.

Plus, our son has started sleeping a ton more than he did in the past. Sometimes he will take a 5-hour nap in the afternoon and be ready for bed at his usual bedtime, "begging" us to get him to sleep again.

So, clearly, he is growing a lot.

Before you weed out that other night feed, I would check and see if maybe your daughter is getting ready to have a huge growth spurt and if that might be the reason for her need for that extra bottle.