How can I encourage my nearly 20mth old to stop waking for milk?

[RemyMartin]

Please help! I was very relaxed about it when he was just waking once then going back to sleep, but now he seems much hungrier and tosses and turns for ages. Also he has so much milk his nappy tends to leak which doesn't help.
I am trying to encourage him to eat more during the day, but it's not easy.
If anyone has any advice I would be so grateful!

might not be pc but when my dd was still waking at a similar age (many years ago...), I started giving her a drink of water and she stopped waking up (cold water vrs nice snuggle and warm milk ) it did take a couple of grumpy nights (maybe more as memory cvan be a very selective thing and this was over a decade ago) but did seem to do the trick for her. she was quite good at filling up over the course of the day and was a fairly easy eater iyswim, so she definitely wasn't hungry on waking, just fancied a nice warm snuggle and a chat!

Hope you can find your answers, broken sleep is not fun.

Also meant to ask, does the thing where you gradually water down the milk, or just offer water but no milk, work? Thanks

Thanks bb99, cross post, you read my mind! Think I'll give it a go, this situation i snot doing me or ds any good.

As above! Do not give milk - offer water. No reason at that age to feed at night. Not quite the same, so no reason to wake.

stinkypinky, I know, I'm just scared of him screaming the house down in the middle of the night! I'll have to bite the bullet now I think.

It will be hard to start with but ime it doesn't take long, 3 days or so to make or to break a routine is the general rule I think so I'd say expect 3-7 nights of him being unsettled, if you can send you dh in then do while he breaks the habit then that's a good solution, imo he's not hungry its just a habit. As a result of not being fed at night he will eat more during the day it doesn't work the other way round imo you have to stop feeding at night for him to want more in the day, you can't just insist he eats more in the day because he won't understand why but after a couple of nights without milk he will naturally eat more in the day and that's when he will stop the night time waking.

Good Luck.

Is he bf or ff? Ds is ff and I'd had enough just before Xmas. As I thought he'd smell a rat if we went cold turkey we gradually shrank the amount in his bottle in the night over a couple if weeks from 6 to 4 oz. He stopped waking for a feed after that.
He still wakes for other reasons but it's a lot better in general.

Good luck!

Thanks lovemygirls, yeas that's the problem, he has hardly eaten anything today. He's managed to reverse night and day to some extent!
mrsflux, he is ff, so did you mix more water in when you did it, or just not offer as much milk?

thanks everyone, looking forward to some sleep now!

Short term pain... He will soon forget, and you will soo love the peace. It will be worth it. IMO go cold turkey - prolongs agony otherwise.

Let us know how you get on.

Ok I'm gonna give cold turkey a go. Cheers everyone

Didn't water down just gave less milk and then offered water. He never needed it tbh. I think he liked the cuddles more than the eating which surprised me as I thought he was ruled by his tummy!

Ok, well I gave no milk last night and had a pretty unsettled night (no change there).
What has surprised me is that he isn't starving hungry! I thought he would eat all his porridge, but he hasn't.
Will do the same tonight and see if we have any improvement, and let you know. Thanks again.

Well done. You are over the hardest bit. Keep going - they soon learn with a consistent approach.

He is no longer waking for milk, now he is waking because he has a cold, but I anticipate getting some sleep soon. Thanks for all your help.