Night Wakings - surely its not for milk?

[GnocchiNineDoors]

Dd is 6mo and is weaning (blw) and eating some food. Not lots. She has bottles through the day (6am, 10am, 1pm, 4pm, 6,30pm).

She has 6/7oz first thing, roughly 4/5oz per daytime feedwith even less at the 4pm bottle. Her bedtime bottle she has 8oz.

As and when she wakes in the night, I try dummy and teddy which sometimes works and sometimes doesnt. If it doesnt work I offer milk but only 3oz. Sometimes she doesnt even wake.

This makes me think that she doesnt need the milk and as she is having tons during the day, could you suggest what I need to do to get her to stop waking through the night?

Should add I think its a little bit of separation anxiety as all her sleeps and naps at the moment are waking with crying and mamamamamamama. She used to wake and jabber on to herself for ages.

Does she take the 3oz or do you restrict it to 3oz?

Could she be teething?

What about her food - could it be giving her a sore tummy?

I restrict it. I put three oz in a bottle and aa soon as she sucks air she turns and snuggles in. If I offered her more, I do think she would drink until the bottle was empty.

Hmm...she may have a sore tummy. Should I restrict what she eats to find out do you think? She tends to mainly have fruit and veg with a little bit of chicken/beef and a little bit of bread.

Oh, she recently cut a tooth so may have another coming through. Her last one affected her nappies big time so as her nappies seem fine atm I hadnt thought she was cutting another one.

Why restrict it? She's probably hungry then. The thing with weaning in the early days is that if she fills up on lower calorie foods she'll want milk another time. There's also quite a big growth spurt at 6 months.

I'd give her as much milk as she wants at night time - it'll pass. Once you notice her taking less, reduce the volume again.

Also keep a diary of foods to see if any correlation between wakings and what she's eaten. I found foods that gave me wind were even worse for DS (green veg, bread, onions etc)

Hmmm she does have a lot of brocoli so that may have something to do with it.

Maybe I should let her drink as mch as she wants at night, I just didnt want to get into a habit of the majority of milk beng drunk in darkness.

You could try cutting out the broccoli. You could also try extra milk at night for a bit then reduce it gradually an ounce at a time.

Try giving her a bit of her last bottle in a bit of weetabix or porridge then give her as much as she'll take to wash it down.

The complex carbs in the supper will help keep her full & her blood sugars steady overnight.

Once she's eating regular small meals (5 smaller ones rather than 3 like adults) give her the milk after food or mix it in so she doesn't refuse food because of a full tummy.

A really good bottle am & pm of between 6-8 oz with one smaller one during the day (say after lunch) should be adequate as long as she is drinking water & having yoghurts, fromage frais, the odd cheese cube & broccoli. Lots of ways of getting the good stuff in her rather than formula as she grows.