Share your experience? How to stop night-feeds with an 11.5month old

[Nickname1980]

My baby doesn't sleep through the night still, he's almost one.

I still feel him about 3 times a night (bottle). In total, between midnight and 7am, he'll drink about 12 ounces of milk. He's really hungry for it.

How do I break that habit?

Anyone share how they did?

Hi nick with my two I just had to be braveness bf go cold turkey.

At that age they will survive perfectly well without milk at night. You just have to live through the pain for a couple/few nights and they'll start eating more during the day to make up for it.

With my dc1 she was feeding out of habit to get herself back to sleep so we just had to put more effort in to rocking / singing etc!!! With dc2 he had a time at this age where he'd regressed a bit, drinking more milk at night and less food during the day. When I realised I just stopped the night milk altogether. He'd caught up with his day time eating after a couple of nights.

They need the nutrients from a varied diet so you really don't want them filling up with milk in the night.

Good luck!!

We followed the 'no cry sleep solution' and DH started getting up in the night for DS and soothing him back to sleep. (I'm breastfeeding so DS can smell the milk and gets distressed if I go in). First night it took 45 min each wake up, then got gradually better and after 6 months or so it's now about 3 min on average, and he now only wakes up once or twice a night (from 3-6 times before). He gets milk in the day, not at night though. DH gives him water in a sippy cup and a dummy if he needs them. Things are a lot better now - there is hope! Good luck!

PS DS is now 13 months and we started this at 7 months

Yes, I was going to say offer water too. We co-slept so only had one disturbance a night. After one hungry night they'll soon eat more the next day! After that it's just habits that need breaking. You just have to say (to yourself!) "no" the might time milk kitchen is closed!

Are you still bottle feeing during the day?

Thanks for these! This is helpful. Yes he still drinks a lot of formula in the day - probably 28oz! And he has three meals... but he's more of a chew-it-and-spit-it-out solids eater!

Have you tried putting him on sippy, or open cups instead? He'll probably drink less and then eat more.

That's a good idea cooki. He teethes like crazy on his bottles and makes them leak all over him (another hazard of night-feeding) so maybe I should give that a try.

It feels so daunting... But I know the night feeding needs to end!

My 10 month old is the same as yours NN, he has loads of milk through the night and day and is definitely a chew and spit kind of a solids boy. I thinks he's just not that hungry.

I'm not very brave so was going to start watering down his night time bottles to try to phase them out slowly. Has anyone done this? should I water down all night time feeds (he usually has two 7 oz bottles spread over 2-3 wakings)
or should do one feed at a time?

Sorry to hijack

We weaned our daughter off night feeds around 12 months by watering down the milk more and more then giving smaller amounts (of the watered down milk) and it worked. I can't remember how long it took but perhaps a fortnight? She's now almost two and has slept through for months now, except when poorly.

Watering down sounds like a great idea! I'd love to hear other success stories!

Scampi did you water down all night feeds or do them one by one?

DD is 14 months and still wakes up once a night for milk. We tried cold turkey but she is extremely stubborn... On the 3rd night of it taking 3-4 hours getting her back to sleep we decided that wasn't the best approach! I'm not cutting down the amount of milk gradually, so she used to have 6oz, then 5 for a few nights, then the past 3 nights she's had 4oz. Will try 3oz tonight! She's a bit of a milk monster too so I cut her daytime milk back to 7oz in the morning and 7oz before bed otherwise she wouldn't eat any solids. I think she'd still happily exist solely on milk if I let her!

We watered down all the feeds and added more water and gave a bit less each night I think.

We recently night weaned our breasttfed 10 month old. I was really worried about it too, as she had previously taken an hour or two to resettle in the middle of the night without milk when we had tried. (She shares a room with her 3 yo brother, so we have decided to stay in with her to settle to minimise crying- I think if we left her to cry it wouldn't take nearly so long)
We don't co-sleep, but adapted the dr jay gordon method and chose a 'window' of time to not feed as a first step. We chose 11pm till 5am. So I gave her a dreamfeed (or fed her if she woke) at about 10.30, then just made up our mind not to feed before 5am- just try to settling in the cot- or cuddle if needed. She did take a while to settle for a few night in the first week when she woke (always 2am or after), but she seemed to get the idea pretty quickly.
About 2 weeks in we dropped the dreamfeed cold turkey- which actaully didn't seem to make a difference. She still wakes some nights around 3 or 4 am, but we can get her back to sleep without feeding- it does take a while sometimes. My sleep is still a bit disrupted, but bedtime is about 6.30pm- so for me 8 or 9 hours straight without hearing from her is a massive win!
Good luck- my best tip is just choose a strategy which feels comfortable to you- far less likely to give up and be inconsistent if you are confident what you are doing feels 'right' to you.