12 month old still has 1-3 night feeds

[mycupcakes]

I just can't find a way to get him back to sleep without it. On a good night, he'll need just the one. On a bad night, it will be 3.

Sometimes I'll be lucky and he'll wake up at 5 and need one then.

If I don't give milk, he'll just keep crying for ages and ages. Even if he settles for a few minutes / half an hour, he'll wake up again. He always downs the whole bottle.

Any advice? Trying to feed him lots during the day. His diet is quite good:

1 breakfast of toast / porridge / fruit / egg

2 sometimes a small bottle before his nap at 11

3 lunch of pasta / chicken / rice / veggies / etc and fruit or yoghurt for desert

4 baby biscuits or fruit as a snack

5 dinner of protein / veg eatables etc / plus yoghurt or biscuit for desert

6 bottle before bed

I switched him to cows milk, but he got terribly constipated, so back on formula for now.

I would just cut it out altogether. It’ll be worst for a handful of nights and then he will be fine.
3-6 bottles of formula at 12 months is a lot!

Give a morning snack and supper before bed.

Also is he just having breakfast then a bottle before his lunchtime nap and lunch when he wakes?
Try following a nursery schedule, breakfast, snack, lunch 11:30 or 12 and then nap. There’s probably not enough time to do lunch, snacks and dinner all post nap.

He needs more food. Are the portions small? My 16 month old boy eats more in a day than my 5 year old girl.

He has max 4 in 24 hours. ( but that's very rare now ). It depends on the day. I usually cut out the one during the day entirely. So he has one before bed and then 1 at night.

On a bad night he will have two more- so 3. Never 6.

That's a hell of a lot of formula! My 8 month old has 3 bottles a day and hasn't had a night feed since 10 weeks. Might be time to go cold Turkey.

He rarely has the bottle before his nap now. In fact he probably hasn't had one for a couple of weeks before the nap, not sure why I included it. He has a snack instead most of the time now. He sleeps from around 11-1 or even 11-2 some days recently. He has lunch then usually. He's always hungry and always interested in food. Never says no to anything. Be eats so much more than my 3 year old !

Any milk in the night should be offered in a beaker, if he drinks it then he really wanted it. If he refuses because he wants it in a bottle then it was the comfort of sucking he was after I suspect. If he continues to wake for a beaker of milk then switch it to water.
Don’t be afraid to give extra milk in the day - from a beaker.

At 12 months it's probably not hunger and Just a habit/sleep association.

My son was the same. He was still waking for milk up till he was 14 months.

My HV advised watering down the milk and just not giving him any but he would just cry and cry. Giving him the milk was easy as I knew he wild for back to sleep.

Eventually we had to use controlled crying and then he stopped waking up. It's not easy.

I think two bottles at 12 months is probably fine. That's what I did with my daughter. I'm trying to get there with him and succeed some days. Then other days he keeps waking up and I just Chuck a bottle at him and he downs it and goes back to sleep.

Try offering water instead?

Or slowly reduce the amount of formula you're giving him in each bottle.

I still think 4 bottles of formula is way too much! And a 3 hour nap probably isn’t helping night wakes either.
Feed him lunch, put him down for a nap slightly later and wake him at 2pm.
When he wakes at night don’t offer a bottle. It’s an easy way to get him back to sleep but it’s not helping him with learning to settle himself in the night when he stirs.

My 13m DS is the same, very similar routine to yours, transitioning away from the mid morning bottle, just done his 1st full week without it replacing with a snack

But come the evening, he has tea a similar size to 4yr DD then sometime under an hour later (due to finishing work, nursery pick up, get home and cook tea) has a massive 9oz bottle for bed then wakes up hysterical and the only way to soothe him is either a bottle (tried a dummy for ages but wasn’t having it) or watch Zog on the TV, he’s actually getting worse the older he gets, we are trying to reduce the bottle but everytime we think we are getting somewhere he gets ill or teething and we give in just to get some sleep as we both work FT.

DD slept through from 5m when she moved into her own room and also had a dummy so on the occasion she did wake up it was a pop back in and she would be asleep again in seconds

@Sissynova I agree. 4 is too much. It should be max 2 at this age. He usually naps 11-1 or so. He's been unwell this week, so the naps have been longer.

It's a few hard nights for me. But it will be worth it.

It is hard to make changes when you know it’s going to be worse in the short term! Totally get that. But he’s probably waking for the bottle at this point so hopefully after a couple of nights you’re on to better sleep.

Ah that sounds tough. Yeah my DD was also completely different. Didn't really need night feeds from like 8 weeks... then she needed them a little bit again from 6 months old or so. But she'd only have one night feed really at around 4-5. She cut it out completely at 11 months. I did nothing to cause that, it just happened. She just slept.

I didn't bottle feed my sons but 1-3 night feeds for a breastfed 12 month old would be totally normal. Perhaps it's different if you're formula feeding but perhaps there is nothing to worry about? Feeding for comfort is not bad or wrong for a tiny child.

You could either just stop giving it and accept probably 3 bad nights but the first will be the worst

Or reduce the amount every other night and aim to be off it altogether by about day 10.

If you're lucky the second option will go smoothly, or it may be impossible and you end up forced to do the first!

But I'd try and stop because otherwise he may carry on waking for milk for another year or 2. And it's not great for his teeth apart from anything else.

Just one thing, don't be tempted to give his first bottle of the day earlier or you might end up with him sleeping through but waking for the day at 5.30 instead. That's actually a much harder habit to break than night waking, and arguably, more exhausting!

I think it is different, FF babies tend to sleep through much younger. That's not what they tell you when you are starting BF. But most BF mums I know their babies still woke for night feeds until 2 or beyond, whereas the FF babies pretty much slept through from 10 weeks. I guess feeding for comfort is less of a thing with older FF babies, their parents use other techniques to soothe them. It's of course fine to feed at night if you want to, the issue may be parental exhaustion. Getting up 3x a night might be a bit much for a mum who's working and also has an older child

I'd off cup of water in case he's thirsty rather than hungry.

I work with families postnatally and I’m just tying up a masters level qualification in infant feeding. I’ve got experience working with bf and ff mums and have for many years, I’ve also provided an extensive amount of night care for babies, when mums couldn’t.
honestly most ff babies, do not sleep through from ten weeks.
its biologically normal for all children to wake and feed through the night until 2. It’s also not advised to night wean until 18 months. There’s absolutely no need to cut the feed if you don’t want to.

we need to stop perpetuating the narrative that A babies sleep through (even adults don’t), and that B children need to learn to settle indipendently (you learn to self soothe and regulate by being soothes and regulated)

Honestly when I was in the depths of sleep deprivation this types of comments were the worst for me.
Most women are working and probably looking after other children. It is okay for them to not want to get up 1-3 times a night to feed an older baby or toddler! This idea that makes it seem like older babies need to wake and feed through the night is rubbish.

You say it’s ‘biologically normal to wake and feed through the night until 2’ but what are you basing that on? It’s certainly not common for 2 year olds to feed through the night.

It’s okay for women to look after themselves too.
This idea that women should wake to feed their baby all through the night for years, while looking after themselves, their older children, working full time etc actually just puts women back and imo puts more pressure on them than ever before.

If someone wants to wake all through the night with their toddler good for them.
If someone wants them and their toddler to get a more restful night sleep and doesn’t want to be feeding multiple times then also good for them!!

Sounds like he’s hungry to me. My 12 month old son has 150ml formula milk x4, 3 meals, a snack between each bottle and meal. Sounds like a lot, I was concerned about his consumption but the health visitor said it was fine as he is 98th centile for height and 90th for weight. He sleeps through the night and given how hungry he is in the day never wakes at night for food. As long as he isn’t overweight just keep feeding him and check with your health visitor. Also I looked at high protein foods to try and keep him full, high % fat yoghurt, cream cheese, chia seeds, eggs.

@Sissynova yes, anyone should tackle sleep (or not) as they see fit. @Whattheflipflap was providing an alternative perspective which IS helpful on a thread like this. I found her comment especially useful as I've really been baby led with my second child (now 7 months) compared to sleep training / following rules / forced night weaning with my eldest. Both are / were pretty awful sleepers and I've found it far less stressful to lean in to the baby's wants than obsessively try to 'fix' it. I also work and have an older child so do understand the exhaustion. It's not forever and that thought helps me. I do sympathise with you, OP. We all have a breaking point and I definitely know the feeling of needing to change something for my own health. Good luck. Remember, even if you do nothing your child will eventually sleep through.

The thing is, how it is now, isn't a huge issue for me. He wakes me up, I open one of those ready made bottles and pour it into his bottle and give it to him. Then I go back to bed. It's much better than the nights he screams and screams because he's not well and I can't do anything but hold him.

Sometimes I can't go back to sleep. But it's not killing me. I'm so used to it. Even before I had kids I always used to wake up several times a night anyway and be awake for a bit. I can't recall the last time I slept the whole night, even before kids. I sleep in a few hour blocks. Anyway, I say all that. But sometimes it is really hard. Like just now, I was just falling asleep and he started crying. I gave him a bottle at 7:30. I just had to give him another one. That's not right, surely ? Hopefully they will be it. But it's likely he'll be back crying at 2-3. If I'm lucky he'll not cry until 5.