12 mth old not intersted in betime bottle/AND wakes at night

[meredith1851]

Hi, not sure if this is the right place to post this but I will give it a shot.

My 12 mth old has not been interested in taking his bedtime bottle for several months now. He will only usually take 2-4 oz instead of 5-6 oz.  His dinner is at 5:30PM and then his bedtime bottle is around 7:30.  BUT, here is my issue....he STILL wakes up in the middle of the night for a bottle and we have been watering it down and he still wakes up for it. He really seems genuinely thirsty so I don't want to deprive him.  He has a 5oz bottle at 7AM and 3:30PM.  He has never taken more than 5-6 oz in his bottle...that is just how he is. 

Does anybody have thoughts on this?  He likes drinking water from his sippy cup but wont take too much milk from it. Should I give him a sippy with his meals instead eventhough he wont be getting much milk? (He does eat yougurt and cheese.)

Maybe still give him his 7AM bottle which is his favorite and sippy's the rest of the day with meals?  Should I drop the bedtime bottle and see what happens? I am so confused....I am exhausted of getting up at night with him to do the watered down feeding but he is a spirited little guy and freaks out if you don't give it to him so I have been hesitant to add more water...(I know, I need to toughen up )

[Lolly]

I would get rid of that night bottle first, he could be just thirsty so you could just give him water. You will have some protesting, but if you stick with it he will get the message. The other way is to cut the oz by 1oz every 3 nights, this is normally done with a full milk feed but there is no reason you can't do that with the watery milk you are offering. Is he waking the same time every night - if so this is probably more of a habitual waking than a true hunger.

From 1 yr they only need 12-14oz of dairy to get their needs met and it doesn't have to be liquid milk so if he is eating cheese etc too he will be getting enough. I would stick with the morning bottle for now, offer the afternoon milk in a sippy and see if that makes him drink more at bedtime because he will probably take less from the sippy. When he gets better at drinking milk from the sippy you can change the morning bottle over and then the bedtime (or the other way if it suits you all better!).

What do you think? I'll move this over to eating for toddlers too as he is a toddler now!

Laura

[meredith1851]

Ughh..it is so hard! Last night he only had 1/2 oz before bed and I felt awful when he woke a few hrs later so had to give him some milk. I felt like since he did not have enough before bed that I could not withold it later. When I did that a few nights ago, he was up every hr crying and I was exhasuted till he got some milk and then finally went back to sleep.

[Lemonthyme]

Might sound a bit odd but have you thought of bringing tea earlier so he wants his milk just before bed?  Might sound a bit back to front but we had to do that when my son was around 9 months because he lost interest in his bedtime BF.  Everything is a bit trial and error with kids though.  Might be if you just switched round his bedtime routine it might help?  Perhaps giving milk earlier or later depending on when he has it now?

[meredith1851]

Like with his dinner? I give him some milk at 4 PM. He has never been a big drinker...never does more than 5 oz at the most.

[Lemonthyme]

No, I was meaning, maybe give milk at 7pm.  It might be he just doesn't fancy it then?  Or try giving tea at 4:30pm and milk at 7:30 as you've been doing?

It might also be teeth.  It messes everything up around 1 year.

[Lolly]

I'd stop the 4pm milk too - by 1 year the usual pattern is to do milk on wake-up, after lunch and bedtime. From 1 they usually only have 2 bottles and the aim is to get rid of the bottles for cups.

Laura

[mjohnson33]

Yeah my DS is 12 months and I dropped the afternoon bottle altogether b/c otherwise he didnt want him BT bottle.  He never has been a big drinker either.  So now he has a full bottle upon wakeup and then before bed.