11 month old - advice on progress - dropping ten pm "dream feed" please!!!!

[nozmum]

Hi all experienced Mums! My DD 11 months is BF 7 am and 7pm, takes bottle about 5oz mid morning and midafternoon and still dream feed around 4-5oz about 10pm.. ten sleeps well til 6.45am without fail. Step one I would like to drop the ten pm feed and then step 2 stop BF and then step 3 change bottle to beaker.. Is this a sensible plan over next 4 months or so? Failing at step one so far as have tried a couple of times to just skip ten pm feed but end up being woken at 2am... have tried to leave her to settle, but get ever increasing whimpers over next 90 mins(!) followed by full scale standing up and shouting and end up BF in middle of night. Do I gradually cut down or dilute? Then any advice for the next stages?

I would try reducing the dream feed by an ounce every few days until you get to an ounce or 2 and then you could probably drop it. Re giving milk in a beaker, I would start now with one of the day feeds e.g. the mid-morning one, and offer it in a lidded beaker. If she doesnt take much it wont matter as she will make up for it at a later feed. If you are consistent at offering it to her in a beaker then she will get used to taking it and you will find it easier to swap the other milk feeds too. My ds was off bottles by 10 1/2 months by doing this (started around 9 months with daytime feeds being offered from the beaker - avent magic cup or tommee tippee first cup). I cant help you with the breastfeeding as I never lasted past the first week with ds

With both boys the 10 pm feed was the bottle feed from 6 weeks or so.
With ds1 I switched to giving him his bottle in bed without lifting him and also brought the time of it forward to about 9:15 I think. Once he'd adjusted to that I started reducing it and dropped it once he got to 2 oz. If memory serves me right he did wake a little earlier for a few days, but I didn't feed him 'til 7 or thereabouts and he adjusted.
Ds2 atarted refusing the bottle at 10pm May/Juneish, so I started bfing him at this time (he's also 11 months but has been very slow to wean so I wasn't sure that he wasn't hungry). This then escalated to two feeds between 7 snd 7, then three and finally four!
I then tried him on a bottle (last Wednesday) at 10 and then at 12 when he woke again, but he wouldn't take them (I'd decided on a bf embargo for those two slots) and he was returned to bed, so the next night I just decided no feeds after 7 and he went cold turkey. I probably got about 2 hours sleep if that, but last night he woke at 2 for about twenty minutes and then went back to sleep (no feed) 'til 7:45! I have my fingers crossed.
As for the sippy cup I've started introducing it now, more for ds2 to experiment with than to get anything from and when he turns one I will replace the mid-morning and mid-afternoon feeds with it. (It took ds1 a few months to drink any real quantities from his.) And hopefully that'll be the end of bfing for me! Bottles for me are just a back-up for when I go out or whatever ao I don't think there'll be an intermediate bottle stage for us.

thanks all - very helpful.. I'll see what happens - have started reducing and bringing forward night feed slowly..