Preparing a 7 month old for night without me - v. soon!

[sophsk22]

Hi,

I'm planning to be away for an afternoon and night this Saturday but I'm worried about how my little boy is going to do. He's exclusively breastfed but doing well with solids. He'll take a bit from a bottle, but never anywhere near a full feed. He still has a dreamfeed around 10pm and a night feed around 4. My partner tried doing a bottle dreamfeed last night but he only took about 30ml, realised what was going on and then cried and cried. I fed him in the end and he took a big feed. I can't stand the idea of him crying all night and not eating. In the past when we've tried with a bottle he's just worked himself up more and more so there's no chance of him drinking from it at that point. I'm not too worried about the afternoon as he's so good with solids.  He's also used to my partner putting him to bed and he doesn't usually take much from me at bedtime so hopefully that'll be okay.

Any tips or advice much appreciated! We're thinking well try a bottle dreamfeed by my partner the next few nights but any other suggestions are welcome.

Thanks in advance!

[jessmum46]

Have you tried a straw cup or something like a doidy cup instead?  Often works well for breastfed LOs, worst comes to it and you absolutely have to be out and neither of those options work (given you don't have much time it may be tricky....) then maybe you could use one of the oral syringes that come with bottles of calpol/nurofen and just squirt milk in that way?  Not exactly a proper sustainable solution but for one night it may go ok.

Hope it's not rude to ask but is the trip something you could postpone to another time when it may be easier to be away?  I just know I wouldn't have enjoyed whatever it was if I was stressing about my LO at home not being fed or getting upset, and that for me would have made it a bit pointless going away. 

[sophsk22]

Thanks for your reply.  He's not that keen on the doidy cup but he does drink water from a free flow cup okay.  He will take some from a bottle, just not much. Tonight it was about 20ml and then he just wanted to play. At least he wasn't upset! I think tomorrow night we'll try putting him back down after that and see what happens. He might be hungry enough to keep going in another hour!

It's actually my hen do. I could potentially not have a drink and come home at 10.30, it's just not quite what I planned and it's good prep for our wedding on Sept when he'll be with grandparents for the night.

[*Ali*]

I would offer the bottle for one feed every day and he may start taking it better. That's what I did with my DD. She has a bottle at BT now every day.

[jessmum46]

Ah ok congratulations!  Not quite something you can put off then As Ali said I think practice and consistency is the way forward, if you want the flexibility of being able to give bottles at times I'd make sure that it's a regular thing just to keep the habit going.  Have a fab night!