Our son is sixteen months old now but he still wakes up during the night for
a feed. We are working during the day and find it hard to be strong in the middle of the night so we give in by giving him a bottle because he quickly goes back to sleep. We need our sleep and it is the easiest thing to do.
We know that we should not do this and would like some advice on how
to stop?

A I can understand your reasons for giving a bottle in the middle of the night
but as you have indicated it is not a good idea and you might like to consider the following

• At sixteen months he does not need food during the night and can go for 10-12 hours without food at night.
• Night time feeding at this age spoils the appetite for breakfast and establishes a poor daily eating pattern and may cause tooth decay.
• It denies your son the chance to learn to fall back to sleep on his own.

Your son has by now got used to his feed during the night so by continuing
to give it to him will keep things the way they are. The only way to change
this pattern is to stop giving this feed. It will be difficult at first and you have
to prepare yourself for crying and disrupted sleep for at least a week. However if you persevere it will be worth it in the long run because you will
all get a better night’s sleep. It is best to begin to tackle this at a weekend when both of you are home so that you can support and encourage each other not to take the path of least resistance.
You might prefer to try the gradual approach first by replacing the milk
feed with water for a few nights, to improve the daytime eating habits,
before removing the feed completely. You might just be lucky because
your son might decide that water is not worth waking up for. However,
if this is not successful and he refuses the water you will just have to
stop giving the bottle.

health visitor

back to faq's - sleep