12 month old not sleeping properly on cows milk

[holliem91]

Hi all,

DD was/is formula fed. She turned one 3 weeks ago. Since she turned one, I dropped her after mid afternoon feed and just kept her morning feed and her bed time feed. I was worried transitioning her onto cows milk would be tricky but it wasn't at all. She took to it so well and I'm not even sure she noticed it was different milk tbh. So I give her cows milk AM before breakfast and then she just has food until she goes to bed.

However, my problem is, it seems when she has the cows milk for bed, it doesn't fill her up as she wakes constantly throughout the night. The other night when we gave her only cows milk, we put her to bed at 7pm and then she was wide awake from 11pm until 4am, I had work the next day and I was exhausted. So we've resorted back to 4oz formula and 4oz cows milk for bed time and she's been sleeping through again.

I'm not sure if this was a bad night or if it had something to do with the cows milk as she has never woke up like that before. But I'm terrified of giving her a whole bottle of cows milk again in case we have a repeat of the other night.

I'm sure she's eating enough food throughout the day as that's all she does, eat.

For example today she had:
Breakfast: Banana & oat pancakes with half a banana on the side
Mid morning snack: Blueberries & raspberries, cheese, yoghurt & an apple and raspberry oat bar.
Lunch: Cheese sandwiches, veggie straws, banana and oat flapjacks, another half a banana & some raisins.
Dinner: Spaghetti bolognese

I've noticed when I mix in the formula for bed time she always leaves some at the end but if it's just cows milk on it's own, she drains the bottle in no time.

Is this normal? Is there anything I can do? Is she eating enough food throughout the day? Has anyone else experienced this?

Sorry for a million questions but I'm stressing over here as I really wanted to wean her off her bottles.

TIA!

Anyone?

Could you give a bit of supper/snack just before she goes to bed with her milk or give more milk if she’s draining the bottle? I don’t think it’s a big deal to carry on with a bit of formula but perhaps try the supper or snack idea at the weekend when you can risk an interrupted night .
My DS is still having milk mid afternoon as he woke at night hungry without it, my older DD had dropped day time milk by this age but I’m going with what DS needs.

@user1493413286 thank you for your response. Yes that's a good idea, I'll try that. If more food doesn't work, I'll try more milk for bed. I hope that night was just a bad night in general and that it was unfortunate that it was the night we gave her whole cows milk but it's scarred me, ha! Thanks again.

More likely its a sleep regression, there is one at this age.

@Fridacaninelo yeah when I was up at 3am the other night I was frantically searching google (as you do) and I saw that there is a sleep regression around this age. DD has never seemed to be affected by those but perhaps that's because I've never followed them as I didn't want to be overthinking them. It could very well be that. Just when life starts to get easier as she turned 1 and we hit another bump in the road

Maybe another snack mid afternoon then later dinner?

I have just started dropping breastfed mid afternoon with 10 month old. So he now gets a biscuit/ yogurt and water or milk in cup around 4pm instead. Then dinner together around 6/6.30

Firstly it’s not unusual at this age to not always sleep though, could be teething or developmental.
If it is definitely the cows milk though, you might want to try goats milk. Her diet looks quite dairy heavy so the extra cows milk to drink might be a bit much. You can buy goats milk which is long life so has gone through a higher level of processing making it more similar to formula but without the faff of making formula. Then you could try the cows mil again in 6 months when her digestion has developed.

As suggested, a bit more food before bedtime might help. Most people like a snack before retiring for the night, and a drink of something warm, little ones are no different.

Your daughter eats well! That is so good to read.

I'm sure this is a temporary problem, op.

Maybe just stick with the formula at bedtime for a bit longer and then phase it out more slowly. It might not be that it’s not filling her, perhaps it’s giving her some stomach pains or wind that are waking her. Or it could be teeth, developmental leap, nap dropping, illness, full moon? There’s so many reasons why they don’t sleep!

I know it’s nice to be done with formula, but we ended up buying another couple of boxes and weaning my DD off it more slowly as just changing straight over seemed to affect her stomach. She was totally fine after a few months

She needs snacks. At 12 months you should add two snacks a day.

Thanks everyone for your replies. I've started to add a afternoon snack into her day now. Yet to try her on cows milk alone for bed but going to give it ago soon. I'm going to slowly wean her off formula and do 1oz less and 1oz more of cows milk every few days and hopefully that will do it!