How did you night wean your LO off a bottle? Or did you just wait until they self weaned? DS is 10 months and still waking 2-3 times a night to eat. He will eat anywhere from 4 to 8 oz so I know he is hungry. Did you replace his milk with water? Did you slowly start offering less milk? Did you give a paci and leave the room? These night wakings are really starting to take their toll on DH and I! We've tried filling him up during the day and doing a dream feed but haven't found either to be very effective.
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have you tried gradually reducing the ounces he gets in each bottle? that does seem like an excessive amount to eat at night at 10 months...or you could try replacing one of those feeds with water, then once he gets used to that, do the other feeds as well until you have one left (if you do not want to night wean altogether).
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We replaced with water. He doesn't even finish it anymore. He just throws it. If it were milk, he'd finish it.
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@petunia354: oh and I wanted to say, too: he seems to be getting up out of comfort & habit, because f you're purposely filling him up during the day, then at 10m, he should not be woken up out of hunger (even if he was a bit hungry).
Sometimes they just wake up for no reason it seems, and so if you give water, at least your I training his body to depen on those calories you've previously been giving at night. -
@NovBaby1112: @TurtleDoves: Thanks ladies. Deep down I know he doesn't need to eat this much at night and is just waking out of habit, our pedi told us this too last month. DH has been against trying to cut down his night feeds because its the only time he gets to see him during the week but I just don't think it's fair to DS. He needs to be getting more sleep and so do I, lol. I think maybe we'll try to start reducing volumes this weekend....
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@petunia354: awwe, that's kinda cute your DH wants to see him so much in the MOTN! most dads will do anything to get out of feedings in the MOTN, haha. does he wake up at specific times?
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Our son was waking up out of habit. But like your husband I enjoyed our cuddle time! I was able to reduce the number of wakings to just one by not offering as many ounces and also watering the milk down. He ended up dropping the last waking when he was around 11 months all on his own.
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We did the gentle decreasing of oz (like 1 oz less a week), and then once we were down to just 5 oz, we cut it out cold turkey. That was around 10.5 months, I believe. He was waking once to eat, but would eat as much as I would have put in that bottle. He got over it fairly quickly, so I knew it was just habit.
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@NovBaby1112: He goes to bed at 6:30, wakes up anywhere between 10:30 and 11:30 and then again between 2 and 3....sometimes there is a 3rd waking but most of the time it's just wake ups during those times. We typically offer 4 oz and sometimes he'll go right back to sleep but other times he'll cry until we give him more.
@BananaPancakes: You are giving me hope that it maybe won't be as horrible as I'm building it up to be in my head. Hopefully he'll just adjust and get over it like yours did!
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@petunia354: I dreaded each bottle drop (we went cold turkey for both daytime bottles right at 12 months), but he was a trooper about all of them.
Just know he'll probably let you know he's grumpy about the night time ones, but it hopefully shouldn't be bad more than that first night or so. Just get it in your head that you're doing it, and be strong! My son was super annoyed the first night of each oz dropping, but I would tell him (aka shush him) that was all he needed and that he was ok, and the fussing never lasted more than a minute.
And I actually didn't wean my 18 month old from the last night time bottle until 17 months, but I think it was more for me than for him. I was trying to hold on to the last remaining cuddle time he would allow.
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