When baby drinks the whole bottle- it was hunger, right?

[mommyfingerwhereareyou]

10 month old baby son is torturing me at night.

He goes to sleep at 7 ish and is usually crying again at 11 or so. I try to settle him with a dummy, but usually, he won't settle until I give him a bottle.

He's then usually up again at 3 am or so and again, trying to settle him without milk, is really hard.

Last night was ridiculous where he woke at 11 pm, then again at 1 am and then again at 4 am. I tried to settle him without bottle, but each time it was not possible and he ended up chugging the entire bottle.

I've tried leaving him to cry a bit, but he just keeps crying.

I get that it's a habit maybe that he can't sleep without drinking his milk, but surely, the fact he's having the entire bottle means he's hungry ??

Can someone help me, I don't know what to do !

Looking at the schedule then you may have too close a link between bottle/sleep.

I always found this lady helpful on the science of baby sleep (but didn't find you needed to follow everything!)

www.preciouslittlesleep.com/when-baby-sleep-training-doesnt-work/

You could try and separate bottle and bedtime and see if that helps?

Good luck! It's hard 😭

Mine took a long time to come off the night feeds too and to give up the bottle.
I think it is hunger indeed.
Try to give him more solid food during the day. Is he a good eater? That should help.
Mine dropped to only one bottle at night around 15 months old. But she did not sleep all the way through till 2.5 years or so!

One option is to only offer water at night, another is to half the size of the bottle feeds you're offering at night as an interim step to dropping them. That should help encourage more eating during the day. But the "rule" he knows now is that sleep happens when your tummy is full of milk.

Maybe look into giving him higher fat foods like avocado, chia seeds, eggs? These might keep him full for longer. My 9 month old son is also very hungry and I try to give him heavy dinners with some mash potatoes which seems to work well. It’s tricky with the dairy issue as Greek yoghurt and cream cheese are always great options to keep babies fuller for longer. Best of luck!

Also he might reduce volume of each formula feed with time and leave some? We were also on 1000ml a day, each feed 200ml when we started on 3 meals a day in January. Now down to 180ml in the morning and the other 3 feeds 150ml, this has been a gradual process over two months. Have you tried him on 180ml for a feed to see how he fared? I was worried also that my son seemed to be drinking large amounts alongside the food.

My son has massive bottles 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

He's not overweight or anything. He needs it. He's just not hugely into his food and I'll be honest, I have a toddler as well, so sometimes it's easier to give him a bottle, rather than sit down and give him food.

With my older one I was much more on top of it all. I'll just skip some bottles now and make sure he eats lots in the day. He'll be fine. I have lots of friends who were giving waaay too much formula too at this age and their kids were fine, except for the night feeds.

I'm at the end of my tether with it though, so I'm going to make sure he's eating lots and lots !

Don’t stress yourself, all babies are different. Not all are into food straight away, he’ll get there. Once he’s a bit more full in the day hopefully he will drop some night feeds which will be nice for you.

Feel free to message me. Lots of experience with CMPA and sleep and nutrition too.

How many oz is each bottle.

is his lunchtime nap long enough too?

Oatly oat milk in food is filling and tastes great, oats are high in tryptophan too (helps with melatonin production).

My top tip is to really up the daytime feed frequency initially. Squeeze in the extra and or feed more nutritious meals (I don’t mean this to be criticism, just specific).

Ensure only the first wake bottle is large and potentially do this prior to his usual wake.

Then the next feeds much smaller. Trust me it’ll satiate him enough. It worked within three nights when I worked with a CMPA client (in their home).

I just wanted to come back and say that we have done a 180 or 360.. whatever you want to call it.

I've completed the milk ladder and he's now on cow milk formula, plus eats dairy.

He's having three big meals a day and only 3-4 bottles in 24 hours and he's sleeping from around 7 pm until 5:00-6 am. He has a bottle at that time and then sleeps bit longer.

I just focused on giving him a lot of food and he loves it now. I hope it continues !

The only thing I've noticed since he's back on dairy is that his skin is dry.

Glad the sleep is better.

highly recommend the Child’s Farm products for dry skin.

Glad hes doing better and yeah this can happen sometimes DS1 did this when we put him back on cows milk following the ladder, I recommend good bubble the Gruffalo worked the best for mine (couldn't use aveno etc due to allergies).