18 month old and sleeping

[kitkat6]

Please does anyone have any advice our DS has always been a 'bad' sleeper, cosleeping is out as all he wants to do it play or roll off the bed. It can take up to two hours at night for him to settle - not crying just not sleeping chatting and a bit of a whine. If we keep him up for longer he is tired and ratty. He still wakes up twice in the night for a bottle. Including bedtime where he normally has a bottle when he goes to bed and another about 30-60 minutes later he has 36oz of milk.
He won't drink milk during the day - hates cows milk, not really interested in nut milks. So formula at night is the only milk he has.
He eats ok during the day and has a snack before bed, he is pretty light weight wise and always has been so am cautious about stopping his milk calories.
Does anyone have a magic solution?

That is a lot of milk for an 18 month old. At that age mine was having 5oz I'm the morning when he woke and 5oz at bedtime. We made up the rest of his calcium intake with milk on cereal, yogurt and other calcium rich food. Have you tried just offering water instead of milk at night or watering down the milk? (No real experience as I BF and stopped night feeds at 10 months by delaying when I fed).

36oz?????? I'm assuming you mean 3-6oz?

So are you concerned about the 2 wakeups or the taking ages to go to sleep at bedtime bit? I don't have a magic solution, sorry, but just to say DS is still up 1 or 2x a night (16 moths). We just take an empty bottle up with us and some premade formula and when he gets up we give that to him and leave him to it. We try and only give him one bottle at night, the rest of the time we shh pat etc.

But oh, I do find giving him 2 really good snacks with protein through the day seems to help him sleep better, I guess keeps him fuller.

7 - breakfast
9- snack
11:30 - lunch
12-2 - nap
3 - snack
5:30 - dinner
6 - milk and bed
3am - formula

36oz as in 4x 9oz bottles over bed time and through the night.

Concerned with both the taking ages to go to sleep and the wake ups.

Oh wow, sorry! That's a lot. I guess you've tried taking the hard line, cutting down and riding it out? Hopefully someone will be along with advice soon!

That is a lot of milk overnight for an 18 month old! What does he sleep during the day? They are all so different but I have recently had to cut out day time naps for my 21 month old as it was stopping him from sleeping properly during the day. I think this is probably less of a hunger issue ( as in he shouldn't be needing that much milk if he is getting enough food in the day) but more that the milk has become a prop to get him back to sleep. Maybe you should try reducing or stopping day time naps to see if that helps?

*during the night that was meant to say

Sounds like he is waking up hungry. Is he eating much during the day?

He prob has a bad belly from all that milk!!

Does his nappy not get saturated with all that milk in the night?