Dropping the 10-11pm bottle

[StrawberryLadybird]

My DD is 7 months and her current pattern seems to be bed at 8pm (after a bottle and usually BF aswell), another bottle between 10 and 11pm and then another one between 4 and 5am.

I am happy to keep giving her the 4/5am bottle (as it buys me an extra couple of hours in bed afterwards but I'm not really sure whether I should be encouraging her to give up the 10pm one or not? She surely cant need it after a big bottle at 7:30pm AND a breastfeed. Sometimes (maybe once a week) she will skip it on her own so I know she is capable of going 8pm - 4/5am without a feed.

Has anybody successfully dropped this feed without a problem that could share how they did it? We had an utterly hellish 4 month sleep regression that lasted about 2 months so part of me thinks I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth with her current pattern, 2 wakes is a dream compared to that really.

Would love to hear thoughts PS DH does the 10pm feed so it's not just so I can get more sleep myself, honest!

We just dropped it and decided to see how DD would get on. For a few nights, she woke up but a bit of shushing and rocking would get her back to sleep. If shushing and rocking didnt work, then we would occasionally give her a small bottle. But to be honest, if she is getting 500-600ml in the daytime, plus solids and water with meals, then its mostly for comfort and not hunger. Then we hit the 8month sleep regression which was HORRIBLE! Really tempted to go back to feeding but after some hellish weeks, we asked the HV for advice who recommended some gentle sleep training (pick up put down method). We started it on Sat night and last night she slept 7.45pm - 7.45am. 🥳🥳🥳🥳 So for us, it was being consistent that was key. Good luck!!

We just stopped as it was a dream feed anyway, with DS not really actually waking for it, just sliding it into his mouth and he would automatically suck. We stopped it at about - months actually.

For a couple of weeks his 4 to 5am feed slid back to around 3-4am but soon went back to normal.

I think we gave water in the night after about 7 months when he woke and he soon got bored of that and stayed asleep.

*stopped is about 5-6 months that should say

Not a dream feed unfortunately!

We will try some ssshing and rocking tonight but I imagine she will put up quite the fight lol.

What size bottle are they drinking? If it's barely anything then yeah I'd give a go of resettling them without any but if it's a sizeable amount I would probs keep it as would assume they are hungry/thirsty in that case.

It's a 6oz bottle but she has the same at bedtime (approx 7:30).

I just think, surely after having milk and meals in the day and a milk feed before bed she should be able to go longer than 2 hours before being hungry. Shes slept up to 10 hours on occasions!

Drop it. No way she needs that. Enjoy your evenings.

They'll drop it when they're ready

Do you have to just drop it or could you reduce it down first? We night weaned DS this way. He had a 7oz bottle and we just reduced it by 1oz every few days and he didn’t really notice. That way it gives them a chance to start to take extra calories in the day to compensate. Admittedly the last 1oz was hard to shift but at that point we realised it definitely not hunger waking him, it was just the only way he knew how to get back to sleep.

So we dropped it by an oz tonight and she is now really struggling to go to sleep and stay asleep. She keeps waking up inconsolable everytime shes put down. She is so wired now its going to be a terrible night... soo frustrating.

I don't think one oz less would make a significant difference to sleep tbh, so I'd assume that was coincidence. I think dropping oz a week or something as PP said to help them increase calory intake in the day could work potentially, I would recommend doing it that gradually if you want to try, or also replace one oz with water at a time (not in the same bottle). 6oz is a sizeable bottle, I can't see how they would drink that if they weren't hungry, they would vomit or refuse some of it if they were too full surely?! I would assume therefore that there is a genuine hunger/thirst need for it. Babies all eat and drink in different patterns, yours perhaps naturally takes a lot of their calorie intake in the evening. There isn't anything wrong with that and you can try and gently push them into getting more in the day so maybe they won't need it eventually but ultimately we do have limited control over when someone is hungry or not hungry. They will grow out of it eventually, I know that's not so helpful in the moment though.