Desperate! 13m old won't drink bedtime milk

[user1487149950]

Hi everyone, pleeeeease can you help, i'm losing my mind with this one! Our 13 month old girl has slept through (7 till 7) for months absolutely fine. Two weeks ago she was on antibiotics for an ear infection and then had bad teething. She didn't eat solids for an entire week and drank slightly less milk. Now she's back eating solids (has been for a week), is fine in herself, drinks milk in the day BUT will only drink half (4oz) of her usual 8oz bedtime bottle and is hysterical if we try and give her more. She goes to sleep fine but then wakes at 1am/2am for the rest of the bottle. We were giving that to her while she was poorly as we were desperate to get calories and fluids into her. But now we're exhausted by it and need her to go back to drinking all 8oz at bedtime. Can anyone advise/help? Her nursery told us to go cold turkey and give her water and cuddles in the night to try and break the middle of the night habit, but she just screams for hours, literally hours. What can we do? We're all exhausted.

Try giving her half the milk an hour before bedtime then the other half at bedtime?

You could try giving her a "supper" - small bowl of porridge or slice of toast before bed. That would help if she's waking because she's hungry but she might just be waking because she's got into a habit whilst being ill and if that's the case you might need to do some gentle sleep training.

My 14 month old DD had a viral infection last month and was exactly the same. So I started giving her porridge around 5pm to fill her up, then a bottle just before bed. She only took 4oz's initially, but over the past few weeks, I've slowly increased it and we're back upto 8oz's. Xx

Thanks for the info, i'm really glad to hear your DD is back taking her milk now. Did you gradually reduce the middle of the night bottle volume too? Thanks

Yeah, when she was better, I just stopped giving her milk when she woke up. We're still having some issues with her sleep, but her food and milk intake are nearly back to where they were before she got ill.

Mine did this after an infection too but totally Refused entire bottle so I was putting him to bed no bottle. He didn’t wake at night hungry though but was very hungry for brekkie in morning.
Switched to a straw cup downstairs before bath and now drinking about 6 oz
I don’t know why he did it - maybe bottle reminded him Of being ill??! Was very bizzare

Thank you

Thank you for the tips - will try that!

Also try mixing the middle of the night milk with some water, 25% to start with then build it up.