Still night feeding at 13 months

[Qferrymum1]

DD is 13 months. She has never been a brilliant sleeper but from around months 9-12 she was sleeping right through at least every other night (hoorah!) The times she wasn't sleeping through were mostly due to teething or illness, I think. But the last few weeks she has begun waking regularly for a bottle (she was ebf until 9 months when she started nursery, now only on bottles). Not every night, but most, sometimes more than once. Thing is when she wakes she will drink a lot....4-6 oz, sometimes more. So I'm reluctant to think this is just a habit and that she doesn't need it. Have been thinking it is a growth spurt (she has become mor mobile recently too). But it has been weeks now and I'm starting to worry that by automatically giving her a bottle whenever she wakes I'm creating a habit etc. That said not sure I can face controlle crying, it always seems easier just to feed her.

Does anybody else have experience of this? Any advice??

Have you tried settling without giving the milk?

We stopped the 4am milk 4 weeks ago (at 10 months). It was a habit rather than a need - he cried for 30 mins the first night and barely a whimper since.

Hello! I'm feeding DD2 (16 months ) to sleep as I type... She still feeds 2-3 times a night if not more and my DD1 fed at nights til she was 2, and it was my decision to stop then, she probably would have carried on! And I know others who've been in the same boat, both bf and ff. So all i can say is, it's not unusual - not sure if that's helpful or not. I'm assuming you're already trying to fill her up with food/milk in the day and before bed?

Your two options are:

(1) Stop night feeds

And

(2) Wait for her to stop night feeds (which might take another year or more)

If you choose Option 1, if/when she wakes you put her to sleep some other way. This will be hard and will take a long time the first night or two. She will drink/eat more in the day, her metabolism will register that night time is not a meal time and she will sleep through. (Drinking lots in the night doesn't mean a child can't physically get through the night without a feed. It just means that they are used to 2 AM or whatever as a meal time.)

If you choose Option 2, well, you wake up and feed your child until she has enough of broken sleep, which might take years (judging by threads on here. Nobody I know in RL has actually waited for DC to stop feeding in the night on their own).

We stopped night feeds with dd at 10 months-she is now 21 months and still only sleeps through once in a blue moon. It's better than it was (at 10 months she was up demanding BF about every 1-2 hours, now when she wakes (once on a good night) we cuddle her until she falls asleep again cos we're big softies. Just wanted to say that in case you thought stopping night feeds guarantees sleeping through-in our case it didn't.

Needless to say, you need to let baby (or child, in OP's case) learn to fall asleep on her own. Stopping night feeds isn't going to help much if you are still cuddling/rocking/whatever them to sleep at the age of 2.

We took option 2. She had spells of sleeping through before tpbut seemed to stop wanting night feeds around 16 months. She was iugr and prem and I have never been able deny her food when she wants it. We were a bit broken by the lack of sleep by then, but she seems to have got there by herself.

We stopped night feed at 10mo too, now 20mo and still wakes up at least 3 times, so I second what Orange posted about it not guaranteeing no night waking!

My DS1 stopped BFing at 13mo as I was pregnant. Up until then he'd fed at 1ish/5ish.

He hasn't had milk or food in the night since then (he's 27mo) but he did still wake a bit (but not nearly as frequently) at night. Sometimes because of illness/teething etc. and sometimes just for a cuddle. If he wanted a drink we gave him water in a beaker.

I just stopped breastfeeding one evening because I was pregnant with DTs and feeling so terribly ill.

He upped his solid intake in the day and was grand.

Good luck

Thanks for the replies. Not sure what we will do but will mull over our options. To be honest leaving her to cry in the night seems like hard work when I know I can usually settle her easily with milk - now I'm back at work, there just never seems to be a good time to do that! - but equally this can't continue. I just don't get why she has regressed when she was doing so well. She always goes to sleep well (goes down drowsy but awake, falls asleep by herself) at bedtime, it's not like we feed her to sleep then or anything. Anyway, happy christmas everyone!

Mine goes down wide awake, chats away to himself and falls asleep by himself (no one else in the room and door shut) but still wakes 3+ times a night...... Sometimes you can do everything right but still have issues!

I'd gradually withdraw from feeding without leaving her to cry for more than a few minutes. Make it an effort for her to wake up so she's less bothered.

My DS1 was the sort of baby who wouldn't/couldn't go cold turkey when cutting night feeds. He could scream for hours, and it wasn't worth it to any of us.

What did work was watering down the milk he had for those feeds gradually, as well as reducing the overall volume. Within a week the hunger cue was gone and he was eating more in the day.