Night weaning advice please!

[BauerTime]

DS is 9.5mo. He is a pretty good sleeper when not teething/ill, only really ever waking for a bottle during the night and then going back off to sleep till morning. He still has an 8oz bottle during the night, recently its consistently been at about 2am (he has bedtime bottle at about 7:30pm).

Anyway, in the last week or 2 he hasn't had a bottle every night. He still wakes briefly but we don't go to him unless he starts properly crying (then we give bottle and he goes back to sleep), and he has been settling himself back to sleep and going right through till 7ish.

I'm wondering whether to start night weaning him and how to do it. Firstly, I'm wondering if his waking is just because he has come out of that deep sleep that they have for the first half of the night, and so maybe the bottle is just the lazy way of settling him back to sleep when he doesn't really want or need it (although he always finishes it). So should i work on getting him to settle back down without it? (and risk him fully waking and howling for an hour). Or should i try to cut down his milk?

If i cut down im minded to still give him 8oz of water but reduce the amount of formula powder gradually until it is just water (has anyone done this?). I know its not recommended for young babies to over-dilute but he is on 3 meals and 3 daytime bottles totalling 20oz so he is getting more than enough milk on days when he has a night bottle too. We've tried cutting the volume of fluid but it seems like if he doesn't have 8oz he doesn't settle back to sleep, but if he has 8oz he goes back down no problem.

OR should we just continue to give him a bottle on the nights that he wants one and see if he drops the feed on his own eventually?

I really dont know what to do for the best. I have no problem with giving the night bottle as it only involves me being up for about 20mins and im happy to continue that, i just want to encourage good sleeping habits.

TIA

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

I'd just give him the bottle. You could try upping his daytime calories if you can, that might help. What does he eat in a typical day and how much milk does he drink?

[BauerTime]

He has about 20oz of milk to drink plus 2-3oz in his breakfast. The night time bottle is in addition to this so if he takes this bottle its 30oz per day.

In terms of food its 1 weetabix or an equivalent amount of ready brek with a bit of fruit puree in it. Lunch and dinner its home made puree (or mashed food), probably equivalent to 3/4 of a jar, then a dessert of either fruit and custard, rice pudding, fruit on its own or half a rusk. He only has a couple of those organic puffs as snacks.