Anyone had to wean toddler off night feeds?

[Moralitym1n1]

That really.

We've never successfully stopped giving her bottles at night. Anything from a quarter of a (270ml) bottle to 2/3 of them (!)

She cries (and now she's speaking more) shouts 'ta!' (get me ... In her lingo) until we give in and get her milk/pre mixed formula.

I want to cut out the night wakings and her drinking out of bottles. She won't drink out if a cup of night. I've tried the hybrid silicone mouth piece thingy bottles and she can't seem to drink out of them full stop.

Hi, my daughter's 14 month twins were in a routine of waking up multiple times a night each for huge feeds and she was exhausted. She has a great HV who said that the twins were in a routine which needed to be changed ,time to create a new one. Controlled crying wait 2 mins go and soothe in whichever suits you , we stroke gently and say "sleepy time ". Go back in 3 mins ,4 mins ....up to 15 mins max . It was he'll the first night but by day 3 they slept all night for the first time . No more night feeds one will occasionally wake up and we start at 2 mins again and rarely go on more than a few times . We used to give them Oatabix or Weetabix before the bedtime bottle for a while when we started the controlled crying but stopped it after a few weeks but occasionally give them it if they haven't eaten a lot at dinner. Good luck

If your toddler is teething, can you wait until the molars are in and try it then? The sucking reflex can really help them and that want the comfort, so it could be easier to treat the teething as the issue rather than the milk. We're only on first molars here but ibuprofen + calpol + anbesol and a lot of early evening chewing on the monkey seem to help him to then sleep through; slight cuddle at 2am and an early feed in bed at 6am. I've read that lots of water in the day helps teething pain, I've no idea why but trying that too.

I was advised by the HV at the time to slowly cut down the milk by an ounce each night then once she keeps hearing that sound of an empty bottle she should adjust to the lower amounts of milk. Once it's finished it's finished, no topping up. It's supposed to make them realise it's not worth their while getting up for a sip of milk. Then after that it's just water only. Worked great for me and after a while even the water wasn't asked for.

Cold turkey. It’s way too confusing otherwise. Sometimes she gets milk. Sometimes she doesn’t. Is she a good weight? A few days of poor eating won’t hurt her. She’s not a baby. The problem is that if she is drinking 3 bottles overnight why would she eat in the day time?
I offered water in a cup and patted. Took 2 nights and that was it. You’ll never break the cycle otherwise so now is a good time as any.

I breastfed, so cut down to nights only (and I mean all night) around 17 months I think it was then after a couple of weeks went cold turkey over a bank holiday, dh got up to dd and the only drink on offer was water. (She already was having soppy cups with milk at bedtime before I refused her)

Why on earth did the health visitor say not to water it down? Yes of course with an infant you shouldn't do that, but a toddler of 22 months? She doesn't need the calories. If anything, drinking too much milk through the night is probably filling her up to the point she's not eating enough varied foods during the day!

At times you're worried about her getting enough to eat, through teething etc, you can always offer her milk during the day (in a cup, or frozen into lollies) but disassociate it with comfort and falling asleep.

We had this problem and decided we needed to sort dinner first, so we could be more confident refusing milk in the night (to not feel bad that she was hungry, as she was a very poor eater in the evenings).

We cut out all daytime milk so she'd be hungry for dinner, and brought in a fixed routine (one episode of Clangers after nursery, then dinner directly after - so she knew it was coming up at the emd of clangers).

Another thing that helped get her on board with eating was giving her binary choices for dinner (sandwich or pasta, cheese or ham, etc).

I know it's difficult when you are worried they are relying on the milk for calories, as being hungry doesn't help with either behaviour or sleep. But you have to break the cycle or you will be getting up in the night for ever!

After a few days she ate much more dinner, then we started very consistently not giving milk at night wakings, just cuddles. Worked in a few days.