HELP 16m old having 4 bottles in the night

[littlemissm]

All my dd's have never gone through the night untill abt 2yrs old now my youngesr dd seems to be going the same way she has 4 bottles of milk(stage 3 c&g formula) a night any ideas on how to get here to go through the night without waking for milk ? I have tried giving her water & juice but she just SCREAMS & i have 4 other children in the house which she wakes up when she starts screaming.She really loves her food but doesnt have milk in the day but she eats enough & is a very healthy size please help

I know what you are saying but i have other children in the house & i have tried this i done it for nearly a week & my other children suffered due to being woken. I even had a complaint off 1 of my neighbours( then again she complains abt everything)

I had a similar problem with my DD. Up until 2 years she was drinking 2 x 9oz bottles of milk a night (C&G toddler milk - not sure what stage that was), and sometimes more. We tried leaving her to scream many times, but she would literally be awake ALL night (she's tough!). What worked for us is a) gradually replacing formula with cow's milk (semi-skimmed). We replaced 1oz at a time every 3 or 4 nights, one bottle at a time. The cow's milk was less sweet and I think less filling (and a LOT cheaper!), b) DH went in as much as possible. A lot of this was all about comfort from Mummy - Dad was less 'fun.' c) We left it that way for a little while, and then started slowly adding small amounts of water to the cow's milk (ie watering it down.) d) After 6-8 weeks, we decided to bite the bullet and got her to put all of her bottles in a bag for the 'bottle fairy' before her nap one afternoon. We left a present for when she woke up. The same day DH took her out shopping to choose a special 'milk cup.' From then on, she was allowed to drink milk during the night, but only from that cup, and DH continued to go in to her. She continued to get up for a few sips of milk for around two weeks. She's not drunk any milk once she's gone to bed for the last week, and has slept through the night 50% of the time (never having done that before!) When she has woken up, we've offered her a sip of water, but she hasn't been interested.

This whole process took a long time (at least 4 months), and DD was older (she's now 2y6m). If we were used to taking in as many calories as she was during the night, we would be starving hungry and not able to sleep if they were suddenly withdrawn. Therefore, it was a two-pronged attack a) slowly reduce calorie intake b) remove the comfort of Mummy (and I was guilty of encouraging this by giving her cuddles whilst she drank her milk.) I hope that makes sense (it's late), and might be of some help.

I had a similar thing with DD between about 18 months and 2. She was having cows' milk but I think it was the bottle that she liked. Just before she was 2 I decided that bottles had had their day and so we chose two special "big girl" beakers for her to have the milk from.

It wasn't an overnight change, but it really was pretty quick to go from needing two or three bottles a night to only one beaker, and then being all right with no milk in the night. The sleeping gradually got better and by about 3 she was nearly always sleeping through.

Thanx for your replys

I'd try getting rid of the bottles first, change to a sipper cup. At that age could be more of a sucking comfort mechanism.