5.5 month old ds waking in the night out of habit for v small bottle feed, any tips to get rid of this painlessly?

[minxofmancunia]

DS is now on solids, 3 meals a day built up gradullly over the last 2 weeks, he loves it.

Also has ff 4 x 7oz bottles a day, prior t weaning onto ff he was feeding hourly day and night on breastmilk for a month. Then movwd to ff and was having 35+ oz in 24 hr period. So on advice of HV weaned him.

He's now waking every night between 3 and 4 am for 3oz of formula. He has gone through on a couple of ocassions.

I'm wondering how we could get rid of this feed painlessly.Am thinking of yrting to do this in a couple of weeks time rather than leave it until he's 1 and do cc which i don't really want to do.

On the rare occasison he goes through he has a full 7oz bottle first thing, if he wakes in the eraly hours he only has 3 oz or so so he can get what he needs in the day. He's a big baby.

Advice please and don't want anylecturea about ff/early weaning/sleep training am looking for practical tips from those who've been in similar situations.

If he's only gone through a couple of times then I'd assume he's not quite ready and just hunker down for the time being. Lady is right, there's a long way to go till he's 1. A bit of supper is a very good idea, do you give a dream feed (bottle at around 10pm quietly in his room) this may also help.

Thanks for your messages. When you say supper do you mean a few spoons of porridge just before his last bottle at 8pm?

E.g. he has tea at 5-5.30ish then a couple of hours later try some porridge?

I have tried dream feeding both dcs and it only resulted in adding another feed to the period between 8pm and 7am rather than "pushing" the 4am feed to 6ish ro whatever so i don't think I'll bother with it!

Also I've always thought once they're asleep they're asleep and i know friends who've had a nightmare getting rid of the dream feed!

If it was me I'd be pleased that my 5 month old baby was only waking once in the night. And just carry on with it. Especially if it's only a small bottle. Maybe he just really likes it, needs it?

I am pleased princessmel, i'm not thinking of doing anything for a few weeks. When bf he was clusterfeeding all eve and waking up 4 times from midnight and then too tired to eat properly in the day, it was hellish so of course this is better.

I was just wondering if anyone had been in a simiar situation.

Ok

I am cluster feeding all evening too. ds2 is 4.5 months.

Waking once usually, am very pleased with that.

I still say go with this and enjoy it, appreciate it. When teeth come it could be a very different story!

My ds started waking once in the night at about 3-4am after he was weaned- he was the same- needed a small bottle of milk and that was fine. It wasn't habit though- he was hungry. We used to leave a bottle in his room with the right amount of formula powder and a flask with 6oz boiling water. By the time he woke the water was at the right temp for drinking and we would just make up the bottle on the spot so it was relatively easy and the whole thing only took 15 min or so.

When he was about 9mths we weaned him off it by gradually reducing the amount of formula so that he was eventually just drinking warm water- he stopped waking for it very quickly!

You could always up his bottles by an oz per feed. That worked with one of my ex charges.

So he was having four 8oz feeds per day, this was after six months, he'd drink all of it sometimes or leave some.