accidental parenting,can anyone please help!!

[katycakes]

Hiya i m new to mumsnet but have signed up hoping that someone out there can help me get my 17month old to sleep through the night,He was always a v poor eater when he was younger so whenever he used to wake in the night we would give him milk because id presume he was hungry and now 10months on he s still doing it,its usually 2times a night and he will cry until he gets it,i ve tried leaving him but he makes himself sick and will cry until i give in (which i always do!!)I know now that he is waking out of habit and not hunger as he is a good eater now but i just don t know what to do about it,Can anyone please help!!!

only offer water and hope he'll get bored.

Don't leave him to cry katy as he will not understand what is going on. He just wants you to help him get back to sleep like you always have done. I would probably try going in to him and patting him until he falls asleep, instead of giving milk, or offer water as daisy suggests. Just reassure him that you are there for him. They do all learn to sleep through in the end, or so I believe as no-one on here has so far owned up to their 16 year old needing their hand held in the night

Although ds could be the first at the rate we are going....hope it helps to know you are not the only ones, anyway!

Hi thanks you 2 for offering some suggestions i have tried offering water b4 he looks at me with such disgust and then just cries more,i just feel so guilty that i ve done this to him and made him rely on a crutch to go back to sleep.I ll try the patting thing and let you know how that goes!1

Katy, I think he will get a bit cross whatever you do, as he wants his milk and won't understand why he isn't getting it. However letting him have a paddy while you stay with him and comfort him is very different to leaving him to cry on his own.

Don't feel so bad about it, you have not MADE him do anything. Most little ones need something to help them get to sleep and until they grow out of it they carry on wanting it. If it makes you feel any better, my son is nearly 3 and he still sleeps in bed with me and his dad, and has milk in the night too. I am happy with this as it works for us, and I don't care what the books say! Ds is happy and I know he will not be wanting to climb into bed with us when he's older.

I think you can gently wean your ds off his night-time milk, OR, if you don't mind getting up to him, just wait for him to grow out of it. They all learn how to sleep by themselves in the end, but children do sleep in a very different way to adults and often need help in the night. You haven't caused the problem or done anything wrong.

Thanks for that its just the reassurance i needed,i go through phases of wanted to crack it and being so determined and then i change my mind and go back to giving in to him.i know he won t be like this forever its just really hard to see the wood for the trees at times!My dh is alot tougher than me and thinks we should let him cry it out which i m def not going to do its alright for him he can sleep through anything so i basically feel that whatever i decide to do ie learning to live with it or trying to crack it i ll be doing it on my own!

Hi Katycakes, with my first baby, she would wake like clockwork at 1am and 5am and down a full 7oz bottle each time. I got her off them by reducing the amount in the bottle over a period of a week or 10 days. e.g. night 1, 7oz, night 2: 6oz, night 3: 6 oz, night 4: 5oz, night 5: 5oz, night 6: 4 oz etc...

Once we got to about 4oz or 3oz she'd protest when she'd reached the end of the bottle but I just put her back in the cot and shushed/patted her until she settled... I was dreading getting to the one ounce mark and decided if I did, I would switch to one ounce formula and one ounce milk and then go to water only... Well after getting to 3oz she NEVER woke up another night and slept 7 - 7. I COULDN'T BELIEVE IT.

The other way to do it is leave the size of the bottle the same but add more water / less milk until its all water. Same result.
Baby compensates by eating more by day (if they need to).

I felt this was a little gentler approach to just refusing the milk or just moving straight to water.

I've the same probem as you again but this time I'm breastfeeding and its not so easy to limit his consumption !!

Good luck !

Thanks bubblesmum i m going to try the adding more water to his milk trick see what he makes of that!
Or though saying that he s slept through from 7-5 the last 2 nights,had a little moan and then gone back of again till 7,maybe he s got wind of the fact i ve been on here1