Getting 12 month old off breast & onto Pepti - help!

[edwinak]

I'm at the end of my tether! DS is 12 months and has been exclusively BF. He initially had the odd bottle of EBM but from 5 months refused to have a bottle of any kind. I have tried to get him off onto formula at various stages but he would spit it out, come out in red blotches & his eczema would flare up. Eventually GP referred us to the dietican who said he was allergic to cows milk protein. She prescribed Pepti (he's also allergic to goats & soya milk) & said we needed to also remove dairy from his diet. (although he doesn't seem to have an immediate reaction to yoghurt, cheese, cooked milk etc).

He started nursery about a month ago & has had a string of bugs etc. He has started waking at midnight & at 4.30am demanding milk. This is so weird as he slept through the night from 8 weeks old - I can't understand why this is happening. He is also a very good eater & eats 3 really good meals, plus snacks a day. I am exhausted as a result of all this night waking and am also worried that it's because I am not producing enough milk or good enough quality milk to satisfy him (my breasts rarely feel full these days).

I would love to hear if anyone has had similar problems or can shed any light on why he's waking in the night for milk. Any advice on getting a toddler to take Pepti & also how to get a toddler who's only ever been breastfed to accept milk from a beaker would be gratefully received!

He could be teething or going through a growth spurt making him wake in the night. It could just be a change in his routine as he as now started nursery unsettling him.

I doubt if it's a problem with your milk supply making him wake as it sounds like he eats well during the day.

To get him to take the Pepti you could tyr mixing it with breastmilk and gradually reducing the proportion of breastmilk in it. Othere suggestions I have heard are to put Crusha or Nesquik in and gradually reduce as he gets used to the pepti on its own.

Not sure about how to get him to take a beaker though!!!

I can totally empathise with the exhaustion, my DS was up a couple of times a night until he was 18 months olds.

The night waking could be due to the change in routine i.e. starting nursery. DS1 went to nursery from 6 months old, and slept through the night from 6 weeks (yeap, I know, I was lucky!), but whenever he moved to a new room in nursery he started waking at night or sleepwalking (when a bit older). This also happened at times of major development e.g. learning to walk, learning to talk etc.

Wrt the Pepti, ds2 was on Pepti Junior (until he became allergic to that!). It was the only hypoallergenic milk he would drink straight from the beaker, so maybe just try that first. It does taste surprisingly OK. Otherwise, try to tackle one thing at a time and get him used to the beaker first (with EBM in it), then slowly swap EBM for Pepti. I found switching to a beaker was really tough but once ds2 got the hang of that, when he switched from Pepti to Neocate it was a doddle by comparison because he was already used to drinking from a beaker.

Good luck!