bedtime milk at 10 mths, will only drink 5oz

[alibo]

ds refuses to drink more than 5oz of his bedtime milk, and is waking hungry at 6am, or sooner. he is teething at the moment and even though in bed for just after 7pm, he is not getting to sleep till 8pm. he is also now refusing to go back to sleep after milk at 6am, which he previously did for 40 mins to an hour. have tried cutting back his yoghurt after his tea, and he took a bit more bedtime milk, but woke even earlier at 5am hungry. any suggestions of geeting him to take more milk, or does anyone think i should "top up" his milk feed with perhaps a bit of food??

personally I would give him as much tea and yoghurt as he wants and let him choose the amount of milk he takes at bedtime - I expect he'll be getting more than enough through the day in drinks and food anyway.
My ds2 is just one now and still has phases of waking early - he barely drinks 3-4oz at bedtime - I think his waking is more related to how much food he's had (he seems to sleep better if he's had a good big pudding of yoghurt or rice pudding) and appears completely unrelated to how much bedtime milk he takes (actually sometimes its pretty unrelated to his food intake as well - just one of those things). Personally by this age I'd be encouraging food intake and letting the millk sort itself out.
The other thing you could do which I do sometimes is offer milk in a beaker at tea-time rather than water - my ds2 will sometimes drink a bit at this time (I offer it after pudding so it doesn't affect his appetite - not convinced it has any effect on sleep but it gets a bit more milk in to him)
But I also think you shoudl consider whether his early morning bottle is something he's become accustomed to rather than anything much to do with his eating habits. With both mine I switched the morning milk to after breakfast by about 7-8 months as I found they weren't interested in breakfast otherwise.

thanks elliot, what rough amounts of tea and pud would you give at this age, and is tea usually around 5pm?

I am just guided by his appetite really. It does vary quite a lot from day to day and it also varies from baby to baby. If he finishes everything I usually give another helping of pudding (I don't give things with sugar in so not too bothered if he eats a lot of it) or some fruit until he stops eating! I suppose I normally prepare around 5 big cubes plus some finger food veg - sometimes it all goes, recently he's been a bit off and maybe only eaten half.

Usually he eats at around 5.30-6pm. On nursery days he will have had 'tea' at 3pm, on home days just milk - it makes remarkably little difference to his appetite!

But your baby will tell you when he's had enough - in my experience you can't give them more than they will take, but I've generally always let them have as much as they will eat. Try to trust his appetite!

what time does he have his milk, when having tea at 5.30-6.00?

sorry, meant to say also, if i did offer a bedtime snack after his milk, what would you give?