15 month old with night time milk habit!

[CheeseFan]

My DD started sleeping through from about 6 months and I was so happy! She generally slept well (11 to 12 hours a night) until she was about 12 months when she seemed to then get so many illness's over the past few months; colds, coughs, chicken pox, ear infections etc etc.

During that time, we often resorted to giving her a bit of milk to settle her. She would often scream even after having medicine, cuddles and whatever we felt she needed to feel better depending on the current illness and because we just wanted to calm her down and all get back to sleep, we'd give her milk as it would usually do the trick and she would go off to sleep.

However, she is now better but is still waking once or twice every single night and will not settle unless we give her milk. I will sometimes try to just calm her down in the cot but she will wind herself up and wants me to pick her up, she will carry on crying and I've tried to offer her water which she pushes away and she screams until I give her milk. So we are still giving milk (usually just 3oz) because we just don't know how to get out of this cycle and as we both work, we just really want to get back to sleep.

I feel like we have created this cycle ourselves but now don't know how to get out of it. I can't imagine just leaving her to cry and I always worry that she is genuinely a bit hungry and feels like she needs the milk.... but I expect it is more just that she is in the habit of asking for it every time she wakes up.

I would love some advice from people who have been in a similar situation about how you managed to get your baby out of this habit. I'd just love us all to get a full nights sleep again!

Thanks.

I have a 14 week old ds so no experience, but instinctively I would say could you very slightly dilute the milk one feed at a time, whilst upping day milk? So in a few weeks one feed is only water? But increasing day milk So you know she is getting enough...

I would do as PP says but no need for day milk at that age surely? My DS is almost 15 months, has a bottle about 3am most nights. Easier not to tackle it yet though, just can’t be bothered. But if it bothers you then yes I’d dilute it. DS has a munchkin 360 cup of water in his bed anyway so that might be an idea.

No need as in, you don’t have to give them milk for the nutrients. Both my kids do have milk in the day but I don’t think it’s a must. Might be wrong!

So how old is she now? I don't really see what the problem is - can't you just give her a bottle of milk when she goes to bed? She obviously gets some comfort from it, and hopefully she will have a full tummy and not wake up.

15 months is still tiny tiny!

Sorry, I misread. 15 months.

Thanks for the advice re mixing milk with water, I hadn’t considered that but was thinking of just cutting each bottle down gradually until she is getting hardly anything.

At 15 months she is obviously having three meals a day (although her appetite is up and down. She also has a bottle in the morning and a large one before bed which is meant to keep her going through the night.

Singlenotsingle, I guess the problem is that she was sleeping through fine and not needing any milk at night, but due to various illnesses and unsettled nights, she is now used to having milk at night even though I really don’t think she needs it. I know that at this age babies may still wake at night but I would like the ‘demanding milk habit’ to be sorted and for her to eventually start sleeping through the majority of nights again.

BeautifulPossibilities I wouldn’t agree that 15 months is “tiny tiny”. Yes she is still a baby/toddler but I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to want her to get out of the milk at night habit, especially as she wasn’t having it before.

I was just wondering if anyone had experienced the same and had success with weaning back off the milk and sleeping through again.

We night weaned Ds by just offering water one night instead of milk. Didn’t even bother with the gradual diluting. After 3 days he slept thru. The first night he looked a bit put out, but he had a drink of water and went back to sleep without much fuss.
He was quite mellow tho. Am soon to try similar with dd2 who is 15 months and fear it may not be so easy.

Thanks Agile. I have tried water a few times and she has just pushes it away and screamed. Maybe because it was in a cup instead of bottle though.

She did actually sleep through last night for the first time in ages so I’m hoping she has turned a corner. Fingers crossed for tonight too!

We are in exactly the same boat. She slept through from 8 months but then in decemeber got a bug with high temp and the only thing that would settler her was some milk. She got the habit and now if we don’t give it screams and screams, usually wakes around 3am. We meant to tackle it sooner but have had visitors staying and didn’t want to disturb them with her crying. I think we’re hust going to go cold turkey and only offer water in her beaker but I’ll also explain a lot to her, that she can have milk in the morning but the night time is for sleeping etc. Fingers crossed!

Marmaladecats It’s kind of good to know someone else is experience the same. I guess the milk is just a comfort and they get used to it so easily.

I totally get why you carried on giving it, similar reasons to us, being away or just needing to get back to sleep.

I’m really hoping our DD will carry on sleeping through and not go back to demanding it and hopefully yours will do the same, but it’s so hard to be strong when you are tired and just want to sleep!