Getting Fed Up

[Bugsy]

OK, some time ago I asked for any tips on how to get dd to drink more milk during the day. Well, the situation has not improved and she is now nearly 9 months old and drinking 70% of her milk between the hours of 10pm and 5am. I am getting really unimpressed by this. She had her 8 month check and other than confirming that she is quite diddy (under 25th percentile) the HV had absolutely nothing to say about her low milk intake. In fact she said to me that the idea of weaning was to get babies off milk on to solid food (dur, silly me!).
Anyhow, I'm getting pretty desperate as two feeds in the middle of the night are not my idea of fun at this stage (particularly as I am back at work and have a bionic toddler, so no opportunity for any catch up sleeps).
I don't feel happy with doing cc as I know that she is hungry and needs the milk but somehow I need to try and get her to drink it during the day.
Has Gina Ford got a website? I'm almost at the stage where I would pay for someone to try and help me sort this problem out as I don't know what to do! HELP, HELP, HELP.

[mears]

Many people may have good ideas of how to get this turned around. I have no experience of my own to share, but my sister went through this problem. She was B/F so I took her dd for a few nights and when she realised I was not her mum she went back to sleep with no screaming matches. My sister fed her last thing in the evening then left. Because she wasn't filling up with milk at night, she ate during the day because she was hungry. Obviously you might not have that kind of help. Hope someone can give you useful advice.

[aloha]

Bugsy, I strongly suspect this behaviour is just habit - 'because it's there'. I totally sympathise, my ds didnt' sleep through until 8months and it nearly killed us. He drank milk in the night because we offered it then, and I'm sure he was waking up for it. We got totally fed up and exhausted, so we declared a milk strike, dh went in and just cuddled and comforted him back to sleep ignoring the yelling, and after that we were able to do cc quite painlessly. Not all babies need the same amount of milk. If she's eating three meals a day and having some milk, I'm sure she's not seriously hungry, and while you feed her at night, she'll never eat more during the day. We decided initially not to feed ds between midnight and 5am. You'll have a couple of nights of misery but things will turn around very quickly. My ds went from not being hungry in the morning to eating a good breakfast and having a big cup of milk. Can you both take a couple of days off work, get some help with your toddler (keep them both in their regular daycare so you can sleep during the day) and really try to crack this. I really understand your sense of desperation.