My 17 month old still needs a dream feed and milk through the night!

[Carine3]

My 17 month old has never been consistent with sleeping through the night. We go through good patches and then something always disrupts the routine either teething (very badly, all coming out at once, been going through molars currently) or illness etc..He goes to sleep on the dot at 7pm and then either wakes up between 10.30-12 for a half sleep/dream feed and if he doesn't wake up then and if I risk it and don't dream feed him he will undoubtedly wake up anywhere between 1-3am for a feed and goes straight back to sleep. If he gets a dream feed (taking about 4oz) he lasts until 6am. At that time I give him more milk and then he sleeps until 8am. I never experienced this with his sibling who is now 4 and been sleeping through the night since 7 weeks!
I just don't think he should be getting a dream feed nor milk in the middle of the night at this age. He eats well during the day and naps well also after his lunch for 1.5-2hrs max. With the dream and in the middle of the night feeds I never take him out of the cot and just give him milk whilst he is still sleeping so that he goes straight back to sleep.
Does anyone have any tips on how to wean him off his feeds in case they are now out of habit?? Although what makes me think they are not habitual is that he actually drinks it all!? My DH and I need sleep! Any advice would be hugely appreciated!!

Mine too... [feeling your pain emoticon]

I have no advice, just sympathy.

[yawn]

Try watering down the milk gradually until you are just giving water and then hopefully he won't bother to wake for just water.
At 17 months he definitely doesn't "need" milk throughout the night it's just a habit that needs to be broken.

I don't think he 'needs' it.

He wants it, and he's in a habit of getting it.

If you stop giving milk and offer water then within 3 nights he'll stop waking for it.

IMHO. for sure

Yep, just offer water at dreamfeed time. It's just a habit he's gotten into.

Other thoughts are that he may need comfort at that time of night for some reason (for example, he might stir as you and your DH are going to bed) - has he got a blanky or taggy to hold at night?

Thank you all for your tips.
Last night he didn't wake up for a dream feed so I left it, and risked it. He woke up at 3am, had 3oz and slept until 6am and then had another 4oz and woke properly before 8am.
As of tonight I will start diluting even more so it is really watery and start the process and see what happens.

keep updating please?

Totally agree with nagoo he is waking for it because he has already had it, at 12 months they shouldn't be having a bottle at all, just milk in a cup and other dairy in the diet. Definitely doesn't need it. He'll soon stop waking once he realises he's not getting anything.

Sorry that should say he is waking for it because he always gets it, he's just in the habit.

my baby is 11 months and i give him a bowl of porrige just before i put him to bed so know he can't be hungry for a dreamfeed, so i just stopped it a few weeks ago. he's still waking at 5am for a feed so i'm now stopping that too, cold turkey. after a bit of protesting this morning he went back to sleep for an hour this morning so i now know he can't be that hungry at 5am. gradual withdrawal has never worked for me!

Our 18 month old also has a feed every night around 3 or 4. She takes a full 10oz and absolutely won't settle without it, she'd roar the house down for hours if we didn't give it to her.

Milk in the night is awful for their teeth, especially in a bottle! I would only offer water.

listzilla at 18 months there is no way that she NEEDS 10oz of milk, she just wants it. If a child a whole year younger can last the night without milk then what does that tell you?
Sometimes you have to let the cry. Especially when they're teeth are getting damaged!

I absolutely do not have to let her cry.

Ok you carry on giving her a bottle every night then, how long will you carry on? Till she's 2? 3? 4? Or just until she has to have her front teeth extracted?
Bedtime bottles should have been taken away 10 months ago, you dilute it gradually until it's just water they're getting and then they stop bothering to wake for it.
If this is done at around 8 months they just accept it, at 18 months they are stronger willed, can talk and know how to cry to get mum to give in.
Nothing but lazy parenting!

Yes, it's very easy to dismiss it as lazy parenting when you know nothing about the situation.

Get down off your high horse and tell me whether your own presumably perfect parenting will include bringing your children up to be as judgemental as you?

Listzilla, you probably will have to accept a few tears on this one. If you can't be a bit tough on this, what else can't you be tough on? Is your child going to have her own way, forever? Because mummy can't bear to see her cry?

I don't think it's lazy parenting to provide comfort to your child at night. Yes bottle of milk may not be best but some may say it is lazy parenting letting your child cry instead of soothing them.

Quite right choccy, it's fine to soothe, just don't give milk.

1. I'm not interested in 'being tough' with a child who's too young to understand what's going on. She doesn't always get her own way, but generally I'm able to distract her. Obviously at night that's not going to work.

1. She's been sick a lot in the last few months with recurrent tonsillitis and ear infections, and hasn't been eating solids, so we were reluctant to discourage bottles when nothing else was going in. Our GP agreed with this.

1. I'm 33 weeks into a complicated and high risk pregnancy and supposed to be keeping my blood pressure down; working fulltime and spending my nights trying to deal with an inconsolably screaming toddler would probably put me back in hospital (again!) so I'd rather avoid it till I'm in a more stable condition.

1. Where's this definitive baby manual that tells you that watering down bottles at 8 months is a magical fix? Because I really wish DD had read that one. Can someone post it a link so I can get a copy for the next baby to read?

I think Listzilla is the expert on her child and I hardly think a bottle at night is going to turn them into Josef Stalin.

Have I stumbled onto dark Mumsnet here?

judgy pants ahoy!

I personally think all this stuff about milk at night rotting teeth is nonsense. Perhaps if they lie down with it jammed in their mouth? Otherwise the theory doesn't make sense to me. When my DS took a bottle in the night...god, easily beyond 18months, he would drink it straight down, in my arms and then promptly go back to sleep. How is that any different to taking a bottle during the day?

I did eventually tell him to not wake me up and that if he did get up he would only get water, but that's when I decided it was time. He eventually worked it out. There weren't floods of tears. He complained, I soothed him, he'd go back down.

OP & Listzilla, wish you all the very best - I hope you ignore the harridans on this thread.

We get to choose what we do, they are our children.

I chose to have a couple of nights where I had to cuddle and soothe for an hour or so the first night, and then 20 mins the second night. By day 3 she slept.

Yes, I made my baby cry. I didn't leave her to cry, but I didn't fulfil her desire for milk in the night (BF, so nothing to do with bottles langusihing in her mouth).

That was worth it IMO, to get uninterrupted sleep. If other mothers choose to carry on giving milk in the night, then that is their choice. We do what we think is best. I did what I thought was best for us, and I'm sure a different set of posters could flame me for that choice too.

I'd like to know how Carine3 got on in the end?!