Really need some advice

[Kathjax]

My baby is 12 months and is still waking in the night, the only way to get him back to sleep is to give him a botte. I’ve tried giving him water in his juice cup but he throws it and screams! Any advice?

Did you cold turkey the bottle. Maybe try weaning the milk down first then changing to water that's what we down with my son gradually decreased milk now he will have water

It’s a tricky balance and I’m all for fixing problems when they are causing you pain but is one wake up where you throw a bottle in (I hand one to my db and walk out rather than sit and feed it) and get straight back to bed possibly less painful than going through the crying and time needed to retrain? At times I’ve set up a bottle making set up with thermos and cooling jug right outside baby’s door so I could do it rapidly and be done. I’ve found that when baby takes one bottle in the night, if you leave them to it they do eventually suddenly not start waking for it. Maybe sporadically to about 15mths and then steadily after that.

If you want to stop the bottle I think warm water in the bottle, handed to baby in the cot. Then leave. If very upset go back in and resettle, hand water bottle again and out. Repeat till they get the message then same next night and next night. If you are consistent they’ll learn within a few (possibly painful) nights. And the water is not attractive enough to keep waking for so they’ll probably stop even calling for that pretty promptly. Babies that ‘sleep through’ actually don’t sleep through, they do wake numerous times but don’t bother to call anyone or wake themselves fully for anything. That’s what you’re aiming for. Baby not to be bothered to call for anything and to be content to roll over and go back to sleep themselves.

When he wakes I literally go in and make a bottle using the tomee tippiee machine and walk back out, he has the bottle and goes back to sleep but without it he will scream and scream until he’s sobbing no matter how many times I go in and resettle him