6mo weaning nicely but waking for milk every 3 hours at night - help

[CinnabarRed]

I'm not sure where to post this query; I'm going to copy it in the Sleep and Breast/Bottle Feeding topics as well.

Apologies in advance for the length of this query, but I want to include everything that might be relevant.

DS2 started getting very fussy about feeding when he was 9wo. At that point he was EBF, but DP was giving him a bottle of expressed breast milk every evening. I kept going with breastfeeding, and took DS to every BF clinic going, until DS was 15wo. At that point our lovely and very practical HV, concerned that DS was losing weight, suggested that the problem might be my supply (we'd tried every other solution the BF experts had) and that I should top him up with a bottle of EBM after each breast feed. Well, that was it for breastfeeding - as soon as DS realised that I could give him milk in a bottle just as well as DP could he rejected the breast all together.

From 15wo to 22wo we pottered on with bottles and DS put on weight as he should. Roughly 75% of his feeds were EBM and the rest were formula.

At 22wo he started rejecting bottles too and his weight started dropping again. My personal theory is that he simply doesn't like milk, but of course I can't be sure. Over the course of 10 days, my GP and HV recommended weaning him onto fruit and veg, then dairy (because of concerns that DS wasn't taking in milk) and then meat/fish (to get some protein into him).

DS took to weaning like a duck to water. He's now 25wo, on three meals per day and wolfing them all. Conversely, he now refuses to let a drop of milk pass his lips during daylight hours, although he will take sips of water from a sippee cup. A typical day would be:

• Breakfast at 7AM - fruit puree and single yoghurt
• Lunch at 11AM - large* bowl of veg based puree such as cauliflower, tomato and cheese; large bowl of fruit puree for pudding.
• Midafternoon at 2PM - the juice of half a freshly squeezed orange given by syringe(to help with constipation which I believe is caused by lack of fluid intake during the day).
• Dinner at 4PM - large bowl of meat based puree sich as chicken cassarole; single yoghurt for pudding.

(A large bowl being 6-8 ice cubes worth of puree, broadly equivalent to one jar of 1st stage weaning food.)

I offer DS milk midmorning and midafternoon but he yells at me and won't even put the teat in his mouth. He will take c.100 ml/3 fl oz of milk just before bed at 6:30PM.

So my problem is that although he was sleeping through he's now waking for milk at around 10PM, 2AM and 4:30AM. To be entirely fair to DS, when he wakes he downs a whole bottle of c.200 ml/7 fl oz, goes back down into his cot awake and self-settles back to sleep. Each night feed takes around 10 mins from start to finish.

DS seems to be thriving on this new routine, but I'm on my knees, and have DS1 (aged 2.10 years) to look after too).

Does anyone have any experience of similar issues, or indeed have any suggestions for how I can get more milk into DS2 during the day? I dread the thought of weeks more of this, and I'm going back to work in less than a month. What if he keeps up this routine until he's a year plus?

Thanks in advance.

Personally I would offer water at night and accept that the first night there will not be much sleep for either of you.

Then at 7am, offer the milk first, before solids. Leave a good hour and then start with breakfast. At this age, DS1's routine was:

7am: 6oz milk
8/8.30am: breakfast (cereal made with 2-3 oz milk), + fruit (to sweeten), sometimes toast fingers, yoghurt.
10.00am: snack e.g. babybel or rice cakes or fruit + water
11.45/12: lunch - protein based + fruit + water
2.30: 4-5 oz milk
5pm: tea - protein based + fruit/yoghurt + water
6.30pm: 6-8oz milk

Perhaps you can cook some prunes/apricots into your purees too to help with the constipation.

Also, I started giving him Hipp Organic Night time milk in the evening - it has cereal in it so sustained him longer in the night.

I hope things start to improve

Hi addictedtofrazzles - thanks for your post.

You may well be right about moving to water in the night. Sigh.

I've tried offering milk before meals, between meals, and even instead of meals, and he simply won't have it. He would rather go without than have milk during the day. (I'm ashamed to say that I tried this today - offered him milk instead of breakfast, and then kept offering him milk every half hour or so until about 1PM when I cracked and gave him lunch. By that time he was hysterical every time he saw the bottle but seemingly happy and content when I stopped trying to bottle feed him. He did wolf his lunch when it came.)

That said, I've not yet tried denying him milk at night.

My HV has tentatively mentioned special formula that's mega high in calories, on the grounds that he'd need fewer fl oz and hopefully fewer night feeds to get to his alloted calories per day. But I really don't want to give up on the EBM unless I really have to.

Another poster on the BF/FF forum has suggesting mixing formula into his purees, which makes sense (although if I mixing in too much he notices and won't eat it).

(feel free to ignore me as I have no personal knowlege as DS is EBF but didn't know if this might help)

Don't know if you've already tried giving the milk from a different container - from the sippy cup instead of the water, free flow beaker, a doidy cup or a normal open cup/glass? Perhaps if you give him the milk in a new different way he give it a go?

My DS is generally fairly anti bottles, but thinks drinking EBM (or anything else in fact!) out of my glass is brilliant fun! Admittedly he isn't exactly downing 8oz at a time, but he'll have a few oz, I think because he sees it as a game.

The sippee cup thing is a good idea. I tried it a couple of weeks ago with no joy, but since then he's started taking sips of water from his sippee cup so perhaps he'll take some milk too. It would make such a difference if I could even get one milk feed into him during the day....

Since I last posted, DS2 has started refusing food as well as milk. Which scares me a bit because the pattern of loving nutrition and then going off it is exactly how he was with first breast feeding and then bottles.

I realise, on reflection, that he never makes signs of wanting nutrition, whether milk or solids, other than at night. Instead I simply offer nutrition and he takes it (on not, as the case may be).

When he doesn't want nutrition he makes it very, very clear by screaming at me. I think I may damage our bond if I keep trying to "force" milk or solids into him.

So my current plan is to go completely back to basics, be led by DS2's demands (assuming that he'll start to ask for food or milk eventually) and see what happens. I'm hoping it will sort of "re-set" our relationship with each other and his relationship with food.

I'd really appreciate any thoughts.

OP my 6mo DTD is much like this. To get milk into her in the day I wait until she is drifting off for a nap then whip the dummy out and pop the bottle in and she drinks.

I do the same just before I go to bed at night. If we try and feed her (breast or bottle) in the day she goes mental.

I hate milk too so can sympathise with her but DOES SHE NOT UNDERSTAND SHE IS A BABY AND BABIES DAMN WELL SHOULD DRINK MILK!

Ah PeasPlease - I've tried that. It wakes him up from the nap he was drifting into. If I persevere, he gets hysterical.

Hmm, that's a puzzle.

I make custard out of EBM (but obviously not adding all the sugar) which both DT's enjoy so that gets a fair bit of milk into them.