Diluting milk???

10 replies

SarahCaroline · 04/07/2004 19:59

Anyone got any experience of gradually diluting night feeds so that lo gets into the habit of taking all the calories she needs in the daytime instead of at night? Is it safe? Does it work? I currently b/f at night so am doubtful, but interested ...

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discoinferno · 04/07/2004 20:10

What age?

gloworm · 04/07/2004 23:44

i did this...but only after baby was totally finished with breast feeding, and was on bottles and solids during day. i dont think i would have done it before he had gone on to solids though.

prettycandles · 05/07/2004 00:31

I did it with ds's 11pm bottle to try and help him drop it. Dd was fully breastfed, so I couldn't. Instead I didn't encourage her to continue feeding, for example not changing sides again or putting her back on after the burp etc. The best way I found of reducing night-time feeds was by not feeding her at her first peep during the night, but giving her a chance to resettle herself and only feeding if she definitely wanted. Also, I never let her sleep beyond 8am, but always started feeding as soon as possible, in order to cram as many feeds as possible into the day.

SofiaAmes · 05/07/2004 01:50

My dd stopped (not my choice) bfing at 11 mo. We then started putting her to bed with a bottle of milk. When she was 16/17 mo. I got a little worried about her teeth and having made lots of plans to slowly dilute, got tired and fed up one night and too lazy to go out because we'd run out of milk and just put plain water in bottle instead of milk. Dd just took it without a peep and we've given her water instead of milk in her bottle ever since.

Original poster

SarahCaroline · 05/07/2004 19:25

In reply to discoinferno: just over 5 months. Too soon?

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prettycandles · 05/07/2004 20:18

How often does she feed at night, and is she thriving in general?

If she's is thriving, then there is no reason not to cut down on night-time feeds (both of mine either went through the night or were capable of it - but I was lazy - by that age). IME (and according to St Gina) a baby still needs a feed at about 11ish, ie parents' bedtime, until they are on 3 meals a day. Some people call that a dream-feed, because it can often be a short feed without the baby even waking properly.

vict17 · 05/07/2004 20:34

Hi. I just let my baby (12 weeks) dictate when he wanted to be fed and since last week he's sleeping from 7pmish to either 5am or 6am. I'm afriad I don't agree with GF PrettyCandles in that you have to wake a sleeping baby at 11pm for a feed. I know a lot of people do it with great success but then how do you know if your baby could sleep through without it?

prettycandles · 06/07/2004 18:04

By trying it out, Vict!

vict17 · 06/07/2004 19:45

I take your point PC - I was being a bit 'doh' yesterday And my darling ds did everything but sleep through last night Quick someone get me the GF book

prettycandles · 07/07/2004 16:54

My sympathies, Vict. When our children slept through (after months of me telling my dh that I had no problems coping with night feeds, and had no objection to continuing them) I realised just how brain-dead I had previously been from lack of sleep. So both times we continued with the our-bedtime feed for at least a couple of months longer than we needed to because we were so desperate to make sure that they didn't wake!

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