Trying to wean overnight bottles 2yo

[NightOwlMom]

Hi, our co-sleeping 2yo has never been a great sleeper but we got into a system that was working for us with a bottle of watered down milk at bedtime and one overnight, which he would quickly fall back to sleep after finishing (or sometimes not finishing). This has worked for about a year. The last two weeks or so things have changed. Our bedtime routine remains unchanged and works well with him calm and comfortable after the bottle (not falling asleep with it in his mouth, usually settling 5-20mins after finishing). However, overnight he’s gotten very demanding about his bottle and has been having more than one. Whereas previously he didn’t necessarily finish the overnight bottle, he now finishes it, tries to fall asleep and can’t, then cries for another bottle. We briefly tried giving him a top up but it didn’t work - when he finished that bottle he would go through the process of trying to settle and asking for more milk again.

For the past three nights we have changed the bedtime routine to give him his bottle downstairs, or gotten him sleepy enough to go to sleep without the bottle. This has been fine - bedtime remains easy.

Our struggle is knowing what to do overnight - last night was a good example: awake at 2am, has a bottle then was upset with a lot of crying for the next 1.5 hours asking for more milk. We know not to give in to the milk request (right??), but it doesn’t feel right to let him cry this long either, even in bed with us for reassurance and comfort, which he wants nothing of! We tried getting him up and going to another room to change up the environment, but have the same struggle when coming back to bed.

Any general advice would be appreciated, and specifically what to do during the night awakening. He does not seek or accept comfort like he would at bedtime or during the day, he wants milk! I should say he eats fine and we really don’t think this is hunger related…

thanks!

I think you're doing the right thing. He's cross because he's perceived a change, but that's fine - you're comforting him, he's warm and snuggled and fundamentally OK.

In a few years time you won't give in to him if he asks for snacks in the night, and this is actually similar. It's something he wants not something he needs, and in a few nights he'll have worked out a new way of settling.

He doesn't need it and shouldn't be drinking out of a bottle at his age anyway. Switch to a sippy cup which he has before bed, then brush teeth. Water only from a cup in the night. You have to break the association between a bottle and sleep because it's become a sleep dependacy - which doesn't even work that well anymore!

Just want to send a hug. I posted a very similar post last week. Our boy is 22 months old and we have always fed to sleep with a bottle. He wakes in the night stood in his cot crying for "bot bot"

We have been cold turkey for around 2 weeks now and its been awful. We have had early starts 5am as we cannot resettle him, we have had him in our bed etc its been tough. I do wonder if I just go back to giving him a quick bottle in his cot to settle him as hes still getting up no matter what and we cannot seem to find an alternative way of settling.

Its tough, sending love.

Thanks for the reassurance, advice and comradery. It’s very difficult to make changes, however necessary you know they are, when you’ve finally found something that works. We’ve also found that no matter how sure you are of yourselves and the clear plan you’ve put in place in the light of day, self-doubt creeps in during the long dark unsettled sleep-deprived hours.
We went cold turkey with the overnight bottles last night as they didn’t seem to be helping anything anyways and there was a lot (A LOT) of upset but maybe not as much as anticipated. However, bedtime was a shit show LOL 😝
We’ll get there…. solidarity to everyone else managing sleep problems!