2 year old has started waking at night for milk!

[Maria2007loveshersleep]

Hi, we have a 2 year old DS who has been a bad sleeper (during his first year) but then improved a whole lot during his second year. Recently though he's started waking in the night several times & crying. Its been going on more than a couple of months on & off so can't ignore it anymore, seems to be becoming a pattern of some kind. Sometimes he cries almost in his sleep & DP goes to him & soothes him. Used to work but the soothing now doesn't seem to work & he gets completely awake & then wants milk. Because of tiredness I have given in in the last couple of months & give him milk (he still drinks in a bottle) but I know it's not a good idea as he now wakes more quickly when he cries & expects DP to go to him 2-3 times & then mummy to come in with the milk offer. I'm sure we're building a bad habit here so any advice would be good.

Just to add, he has mild asthma & often it's the coughing that wakes him (recently has been a bit bad) so I'm reluctant to go down the CC route before the coughing improves. We did do CC once when he was 9 months to get rid of his dummy which was destroying his sleep & that worked extremely well & quickly. But as I said I'm reluctant to do CC on a 2 year old who coughs too... What would you do?

Whenever our 2yo has a bad patch sleep-wise it's usually illness or teething.

Have you tried painkillers to rule out any teething pain? How's his eating in the day?

Hello! We had a similar situation with our wee one, who is also two and has lots of trouble with asthma. I took the view over the winter that when she was really wheezy she wasn't eating much during the day and that if milk helped to calm her down and get her back to sleep it was probably a good idea... When she was well again I just put warm water in her feeder cup and told her that we didn't have milk until 7am (she has a clock in her bedroom) and it took a few upset nights before she was reminding me that we didn't have milk until 7am...
Personally wouldn't do CC - especially with an asthmatic child- it can be very frightening for them. We started putting on a CD of "sleepy music" at bedtime and then again while settling from night wakings and it seems to work quite well. DD started sleeping through for the first time at 2.6 (2 weeks before DD2 was born) and has been fab ever since. Might also be worth checking with your GP if the asthma meds can be increased- this might help the night cough.
Hope this helps!

STOP giving the milk. Sorry to be harsh, but at this age he has no need for it in the night (unless ill and not eating).

As long as he's not ill give him weetabix or something before bed, you know he's not hungry, and stop the milk. It's a vicious cycle and he's in a habit. You'll have a couple of crappy nights, but then that shoud be it. (honestly)

We found that the 'bottle fairy' was quite effective (We haven't braved the dummy fairy yet) but he accepted no more bottles.

We had to give him his nighttime milk in a cup with a straw for a while, but at least not more damned bottled (aren't you sick of cleaning them?)

If you are near an Ikea, try these
www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/20137573

Jareth, I think you're right about stopping the milk in the night, and we've made the decision with DP to do just that since DS is very well to be honest these days, cough much less in the night. However, I won't be stopping bottle any time soon, even though he's 2. I feel the one bedtime bottle does him no harm & I think the distress in trying to stop that will just be too much.