13 mth old constantly asking for milk

[Claireclarence]

Hi there,

I have sleep problems with my LO so usually post in sleep but over the last month or so she's learnt to ask for milk and lately seems to be asking continuously!

I still enjoy breast feeding her but I really don't want our time together to be all about her asking for feeds. Sometimes she'll take a feed and then immediately ask again. She's also become fascinated by bare skin. Every time she sees a bit she'll point at it! The way she asks for milk is to place her hand on my chest and make a pleading sound. I don't want to deny her of comfort but I also don't want to be constantly feeding her. She still has quite a lot of feeds - Wake up/after lunch/after dinner and before bedtime routine, I'm also still feeding her a couple of times in the night.

I feel that the bad nights are partly caused by the fact that she's used to waking up and me feeding her. She cries more when my husband goes into settle her but usually settles quicker then with me.

She's never taken a bottle and lately we've been trying to get her to drink milk from a cup as I have to work quite a bit now. She won't drink milk from a cup and usually pushes it away.

I'm still happy to feed her and do still enjoy it but I don't want our time together to be all about it. Does anyone have any advice about this or experienced a similar thing?

Thanks

[Shiv52]

Can you distract her from not having milk?  Just make a concerted effort to say  'we'll have more milk later, lets go sing over here' and just distract and redirect?  I wouldnt worry too much if shes not taking milk in a cup, just keep offering.  At this age if you are feeding morning and bedtime on days you work and shes eating a good variety of foods she is getting what she needs.  She is getting a fab number of BFs so i'd say she fine diet wise.

I think it does seem like the BFing is a prop for sleep at this stage at nights and you probably do need to tackle it.  Does she go to sleep for naps and bedtime independently or does she feed to sleep?

[Claireclarence]

Hey, Yes, I've been trying to distract her with favourite toys etc but she gets quite upset sometimes. She's quite a determined little character!

Yes, I think you are right about the nights. I used toBF her to sleep when she was little then when sleep issues started at about 3 months I realised a few months later my fatal error! Thats when I found out about the Baby Whisperer and I had to do PU/PD at about 6 months to get her out of the habit. Since then things have got better/worse/better (its been a very bumpy ride! She was settling herself for naps and bedtime until a few days ago, but I think its probably because we have been on holiday and I fed her to sleep on the plane as it was my only way of calming her down.

I have felt for a while that the nights are still bad (waking anything between 2 and 6 times a night at the moment) because I still feed her when she wakes in the night. I had wanted to gradually phase it out when she started sleeping more and only waking for 2 feeds a night but now I feel that it won't get better without cutting out night feeds all together.

So she doesn't fall asleep whilst feeding her anymore but I certainly think that in the middle of the night it calms her down and helps to make her sleepy again. Possibly I've given on occasions and fed her more then I think I should as I'm so tired.

Do you think I should just cut the night feeds all together? I know it will be hard and worried it will take a long time to sort itself out. We're currently doing gradual retreat to help her settle when she wakes.

Thanks

[Shiv52]

I didn god cold turkey. I wouldn't have outlasted my little madam!

What I did was pick a time, I think it was 1am Initally and decided if she woke before that I would just resettle back to sleep however I could. Usually her dummy and a back rub worked. She did protest a lot the first night and the trick is once you start resettling then you keep going until she is back to sleep.  So a waking before 1am I resettled. After that I fed. After a few nights when I could see she was resettling a bit easier I moved the time to 2am with the same rules. And so on. Every few nights I moved the time and after 2 weeks we were getting through all the night. I think I did keep the 5/6 feed for a bit as it got us through to a decent wake up! And I didn't mind one NF but that's not for everyone.

How does that sound?

As for the days I would keep trying to distract her but otherwise I tended to feed a good bit. I found teeth made her ask more. Is your LO getting her 1YO molars?  They caused havoc here.

[Fiver]

Totally agree with Shiv

[Claireclarence]

Thank you!

Thats great advice, its just good to get some reassurance as well.

I'm doing the not feeding before a certain time and gradually extending it thing, but this time trying hard to stay consistent and not give in!

I'm not sure about her teeth. She teethed very early and got 8 in quick succession and obviously experienced a lot of pain. Which I think has been part of the problem with our bad nights as she's comfort fed a lot. Now I don't think there's much going on in there but its difficult to look. She doesn't seem to be rosey cheeked or any other classic signs, but quite possibly they are giving her a bit of trouble.