im beyond exhausted :(

[lilybeansmummy]

my 21mnth old dd has started waking up for bottles again through the night, i have posted about this before but she stopped after a couple of wks and it was only once a night now it is atleast twice!! i have tried to not give in and just put her back to sleep but she will not go back over until she has 1 and she does drink the whole thing! i work full time so ive taken to just given her the bottle when she gets up and putting her back to sleep b ut i cant do this forever as im absolutely wrecked! am i not giving her enough of something and thats why she's waking up? i just dont understand why she's waking up obviously hungry!

What does she eat during the day, and what time's her bedtime milk?

Have you tried offering water at night instead of milk? She may be confusing hunger and thirst - v. common in adults too

she has the norm [email protected] toast@10 then nap@11-1 lunch@1ish a wee snack around 3 and then [email protected] bedtime [email protected] and bed at 7.30! i havent offered water, never thought of that! will def give that a try!

Have you tried a bit of supper with the bed time milk? maybe a fruit pot? My little man loves his bedtime snack still to this day he is 6.

ok so tried the water when she woke up through the night but she wouldnt entertain it at all :(

My 22 month old still has bottles of milk. He has one at bed time, in his cot, around 7.30. Then when we go to bed he has another, about 11ish. He doesn't really wake for this, we just give it to him as a dream feed.

If he doesn't have this bottle, he will wake and ask for one at some point in the night. Otherwise he sleeps through. I'm sure he doesn't need it. But it's only milk so im not worried about him having it.

Maybe you could try the same and see if it sees her through?

Oh god, I'm with you! If we don't dream feed DS (nearly 23mo) he wakes up shrieking for food between 3.30am-4.30am. He eats like a horse in the day- he is 96cm tall and 16kg so not a problem with intake!

We tried starting to water down his dream feed as someone said to us they stop bothering to wake up for it once their body adjusts to not having a calorie input at that time. No way! Also, often, if he wakes up hungry at 4ish he does not go back down. Just not worth it!

I have seriously considered putting a plate of sandwiches in his cot.

This too shall pass.

Lol at plate of sandwiches!

Is she in nursery? The portions they give them are tiny my daughter always comes back hungry. At 21 months she shouldn't need milk at night, I'd be trying to feed her more during the day.

Persist with the water thing for another night or two. My DD did this around 2.5yo and was a real night-milk junkie for a while. 3 nights of "no milk, but you can have water" (3 nights of screaming) and she began sleeping through again.

IME it takes 2-3 nights to break a habit like that. But you need to pick a time when you are up for the "fight". If you are tired and half-hearted, you will cave in.

Good luck x

I agree with PoppyWearer persist with the water or at least water down the milk. DD did this and was a nightmare - in the end we just offered her water and changed her and after a few nights of her not being happy at all she went back to sleeping through. It is hard though especially as you know that the bottle will end all the crying...but if you don't do it it will just become habit.

It took us 3 nights to night-wean our DS, at about 8 or 9 months old. At the time I was still BF so DH went in and settled him when he woke. DS was NOT happy, but I stayed out of it or I would have caved in. So difficult to listen to, and it took DH about an hour to get him back to sleep each time. But three nights and that was it, he stopped expecting milk when he woke up and has never had milk after bedtime since then - well, maybe once or twice when we have tried everything else and he wouldn't go back to sleep, but not as routine.

Having said that, he still doesn't sleep through the night very often (21 months old now), but that's a different story...