Need advice on weaning off the breast -refusing bottles and waking in the night aged 1yrs.

[tarzan]

I am writing for a friend who is getting up 2-3 times per night to brest feed her 11 1/2 month old son. She is shattered and wants to wean him but he refuses to take a bottle. He does not seem to like a variety of formula milks. He does drink from a cup for his water during the day and eats well. Does anyone have any advice to offer or have you tried and tested any thing that may be usefull? Controlled crying method? Perhaps feed with a cup and even starting whole milk?

Yes try milk in the cup if he drinks water from it. Whole cows milk should be fine as he is nearly one year. He might like it better than formula.

My dd would never drink out of a bottle and at that age wasn't interested in a cup either. I eventually gave up night feeds by just leaving her to cry. Took two nights and then she just stopped waking up. If they have plenty to eat in the day they don't need milk at night and I think waking up was just a habit.

I think that at that age, he is not drinking during the night because he is hungry. It's just a habit, specially if you say that he's eating well. Milk from a cup is the way to go during the day, and no milk at all at night. When he wakes up at night, she should give him a few sips of water, and put him back to bed. It's tough love at that stage I'm afraid, I know that there are other methods but what worked for me was to make sure that our DS (he was 18 months at the time and I was pregnant with second baby, and we really needed him to sleep through the night) was safe and hydrated. We left him in his cot and went in to check on him as often as we felt was needed - every two minutes or so. We would tell him exactly the same thing every time we went in, calmly and firmly (it's night time, it's time to sleep now). The first night he cried for 20 minutes (it was really hard!) and the second night, 10 minutes. THird night he slept through. Has been sleeping well ever since and he is now 2. The book we have is Sleeping through the night' by Jodi Mitchell.

DD was like this too- we put water in her cup and offered her that, and she stopped waking for night feeds, as she was most disgusted by what was on the menu!
The only times after that that she woke was due to illness of teething, so thats a different matter!

she doesn't have to stop bf altogether. it will be no different, as the message is the same - there is no milk at night. there being milk during the day shouldn't confuse anything.

I would just give them a cuddle, stoping the feeding wont stop the night waking , that will take some time. They have to learn who to sleep with out feeding first.

I used to take baby in my bed, and lay down , snuggle her up to me facing away from me. i.e ,
her back against my chest, and cuddle her.

Once she/he has accepted not feeding, the next step is the sleeping though.

But I never used a cot for my last baby.

Thanks for all the imput