8 month old regression - now needing a bottle every night! ADVICE NEEDED!

[BlairW]

I have boy/girl twins who are now 8 months - my first children.

Both babies were sleeping through the night by 8 weeks most nights (10pm til 7ish) and I thought I had cracked it!

However around.8 weeks later (so almost 4 months of age), boy twin decided to start waking up at night but could easily settled with his dummy or a bit of reassurance. Annoying but not a major issue as I could fall asleep quickly afterwards and everyone (my mum, HV, my friends with kids etc) all reassured me that this would resolve and he would do back to sleeping through like his sister.

But this hasn't happened.... and just after 6 months, he is now waking every night but won't settle until he's had a bottle of milk. He is a slow feeder and takes ages to wind, so by the time I've done all this and he's back to sleep it's an hour and then I'm wide awake and unable to nod off. I end up staring at the clock til 6am and feel terrible in the morning as a result.

Again everyone told me it was a phase, and that it would last a week or resolve once he was eating 3 meals a day. Nope - he eats like a machine during the day and is having between 30 and 35oz of formula during the day as well and yet he is still waking for a bottle overnight. It can be anytime between 1am and 5am but typically around 3am seems to be the most common time.

I AM EXHAUSTED!

Any tips or helpful tricks to get him to stop?

He goes to bed with his sister at 7pm, last bottle is at 6.30pm and is 8oz which he drinks in full and dinner is normally between 5-6pm where he eats loads - tonight was cucumber sticks, sweet potato stew and then cherry yoghurt.

It’s not unusual for them to still need a bottle overnight - my 14 month old still regularly has one though we are trying to push it closer to morning. Does he still really need winding after the bottle? If that can be cut out it can reduce the time and energy you’re putting in.
you could also try watering down the milk to make it less attractive - if it’s a comfort thing he will find it more and more boring. You could also just offer water, but if he’s anything like my son that will be met with pure fury.
id work on trying to keep your brain in low gear so you can go back to sleep! Make sure lights are down low, don’t talk to him too much - just feed the bottle, low interaction (obviously cuddle and soothe etc). Would an audio book help you drop back off? You can get headbands with earphones in that you can sleep in.

When I night weaned mine I just reduced the amount in the bottle over the course of a week-10 days. So made an oz less every few nights, until it was down to just 20-30ml, then after 3 nights of that I stopped offering a bottle.

Mine adapted very quickly (I did it around 6m old) and from then on night wakes were treated with patting/cuddles/dummy replacement etc as needed. Sometimes it was a quick resettle, sometimes not. But I was just happy not to be faffing with a bottle anymore.

He's obviously hungry so feed him? Unfortunately babies and children have inconvenient needs sometimes

You could try adding protein to his last meal to keep him fuller for longer? Tbh it is quite normal for an 8 month old to wake for a feed in the night.

Thanks for your reply and I will try to answer your points

Yes - def still needs winding. After his feed, his belly is so blown up full of air he is like a human balloon. He normally winds in 1 or 2 massive burps but I have to sit him upright to get them out and sometimes it takes a while. If I put him down with his belly like that, he just cries in discomfort until he is picked up and winded.

I've tried giving him water instead in the same or similar bottle - he takes 2 sips and then screams that its not milk and won't stop until he gets milk.

I could try and water it down - overnight I've been using the readymade Aptamil bottles so I can feed him as quickly as possible but I could dilute it down slightly to make it more watery.

Each night it varies - some nights he only needs 4 or 5oz, some nights he needs a full 7oz bottle.

I never talk to him overnight or turn the lights on. We have a nightlight in the room so I pour out the aptamil in the dim lighting and feed him as quick as I can before winding, putting his dummy back in and putting him back down. If I do all those steps, he falls back asleep immediately - but if I shortchange him with either feed volume or winding - he won't sleep and starts crying again for more milk/winding.

Yes so I try to - the sweet potato stew was West African inspired and had peanut butter and spinach in it (as well as tomatoes, onion, seasoning etc). Tonight planning to do chicken pasta.

I get it's normal for some babies to wake at night but even my health visitor said it was odd that he's started needing a night feed when he's gone 4 months without one. And he's thriving growth wise - he's currently at 75% centile for weight and 90% for length/height (his dad is 6ft4 so not a surprise!)