how do i stop 11month from having a bottle over night?

[irishrose74]

Kian is 11 months and will have his bottles as follows...

6am 6oz

10am 5oz

2pm 5oz

6pm 5oz

10pm 6oz

2am 6oz


he doesnt eat very much except if he's at nursery (2 days a week).

i need him to up his food intake as well so i'd love any tips on both stopping the 2am bottle and increasing his food intake.

Thanks 

[Grants]

Hi there my ds is also 11 months old. I think u need to cut the 10pm bottle as well. I think he is having too many bottles for his age and thats why he doesnt want to eat his food. My ds was on 4 bottles. Then i cut 1 bottles when he turned 10 months and i cut another bottle 2 days ago. He is on 2 bottles now(morning and the one b4 bt) he is getting all the formula he need at this age from both bottles plus some calcium from dairy he have during the day. Im not saying that u should go on 2 bottles as this was my personal choice. But im just giving u an example of my lo who is the same age as urs. I cut both bottles gradually as he is going to nursery for 2 days in september and i thought it would be easier if he had all his bottles at home. Once u have cut ur lo bottles he will increase his solids. When i put my ds on 3 bottles when he was 10 months he started eating much more! :-) i hope this helps.

[Lolly]

I think the way to increase his food intake will  be to cut down on the milk too. He is still having a lot of bottles for his age and formula is very filling. By 1 year most babies are on 3 bottles - wake-up, either mid morning or mid afternoon and bedtime. Some will have 4 but the dreamfeed is normally dropped around 8 months. They only need around 20 -24oz of milk with solids and less after 1 year.

From around 7 months til 1 year my DD's routine was:

Wake & bottle
Breakfast 1-1.5 hours after
Nap
Lunch
Bottle - 2/2.30 ish
Nap
Tea
Bath, bottle bed

I would start by cutting down either the 10am or 2pm bottle and offer a snack with it. You can drop it gradually an oz at a time or go cold turkey and just offer a snack instead.

There are a variety of ways to drop night feeds and the dreamfeed. We stopped DD's nightfeed around 8 months by reducing the amount we gave her and then just offering water. So we only offered 5oz for a few nights, then cut it to 4oz, then 3oz and resettled her with shh/pat and PD after the bottle was finished. She then slept through one night so after that if she woke she only got water. The other way is to dilute the nightfeed so they realise it's not worth waking for. The first night you add 1 scoop less powder to the water, do that for three nights then leave out another scoop and keep going every 3 nights until there is only water in the bottle.

There is some good advice here for dropping the DF http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=54662.0

It would probably be too much to drop the DF and the nightfeed together so you may be better deciding which to do first and we can help you more. If you can, post your routine in terms of

E - milk and solids, times and amounts
A - how long for
S - times and how long for

What do you think?

Laura

[irishrose74]

thanks guys, it was only when i wrote the post i realised how much milk he was having. its no wonder he's never hungry. Am going to drop a bottle from there. Have started to reduce the amount of milk in his bottle at 2am (its sometimes later/earlier) and will do the same for his 10pm bottle (sometimes later/earlier).


when he's at nursery he can at times just have an couple of ozs from the bottle so i am going to have a look at what he's eating there. As he seems to eat no problem there. I think its mostly my fault we have got to this point as I have let Kian have a bottle when he should be having food.

So my plan is to reduce the amount of milk in his night time bottles. and try and drop one of his daytime bottles. He's had a bottle this morning at 4am and 8am so he will look for one around 12pm, but will offer a yogurt or some toast instead. Then some water to replace the milk. Will try and get him to go to 2pm without having a bottle.

Wish me luck!!

EAS- need to check what this is. Am new to The Baby Whisperer methods.

[Grants]

Hi there!!

Just do it gradually as Laura said. First 2am bottle then dream feed and then the middle of the day one. If you do it gradually it will give his body time to get used to it( this is just my view though, nothing to do with BW.) I never liked going cold turkey with my DS when cutting bottles. So I was shiffting around amounts of formula (always watching his daily intake) offereing more milk on the bottles I wanted to keep and giving less milk on the bottles I was going to take away, so giving him time to adjust and take more milk on bottles he was going to keep. Again this is my own thing. But I'm sure Tracy would have approved it though! LOL

Good luck!! I'm sure you will do great!!

[irishrose74]

thanks grants