Help! 2 YO addicted to the bottle at night...and frequent waking and bed-wetting...

[mel_mama]

Help!  My 2 yo DS has been teething (molars) for the past month or so and has been waking up a lot at night.  We started out just giving him a bottle of milk to fall asleep, but now, everytime he wakes up (which sometimes is up to 5-6 times a night or so, especially lately with the teething) all that soothes him back to sleep is the bottle. The problem is that he is wetting the bed like crazy, going through tons and tons of diapers (we do cloth, so it's really hard to keep up on the laundry lately...), and it is just getting out of control.

I tried withholding the bottle last night and just saying, "no more milk" but it was a nightmare, as you can imagine.  I tried just holding his hand, rocking him, offering a little sip of water (NO, he said, MILK), etc., but nothing worked.  Finally I caved and gave him a bottle after about 2 hours of this.  :( 

Any suggestions?  Has anyone been through this?  I am at my wit's end with nighttime diaper changes, leaks, bottle refills...  :(

[sillysmile]

We had this problem for a while, and gradually diluted the bottles over a few weeks until they were 100% water as well as the volume in each bottle (3oz --> 0.5-1). My DD is almost 2, and she still wakes several times and asks for water. We'll give her about ~1 oz at a time, several times over the course of the night. So the diaper situation is definitely much more manageable. Sometimes she's content to suck on an empty bottle. She never took a paci, so I guess this is her equivalent. I'm sure that she would sleep longer stretches if she didn't need the bottle to calm herself back to sleep... so I'm not necessarily advocating our approach.. but little bits of water is an improvement over tons of milk. Hope that helps -

[D_McG]

I'd cut them down gradually in size or dilute like the PP says.  Or stretch them out... that might work.  I don't think it'll be tear free no matter what you do but it'll pass quickly!

[Wild Lupine]

We diluted over a period of time, too. We did the dilutions slowly so she didn't notice. Once it got to all water she stopped waking up. In our DD's case I think she needed to boost her day time calorie intake so she no longer wanted milk at night, and the gradual dilutions helped her do that. There were no tears :)

But, with teething, you may need to wait that out. Teething can be especially painful for some kids. Do you use OTC pain-killers like ibuprofin? They can help for several hours, not the whole night, but if he's waking from the pain, ibuprofin might help reduce the number of wakings.

[sillysmile]

We didn't have any tears either, since the dilutions and volume decreases were so gradual. However, we didn't really see ANY decrease in the frequency of her night-waking once we were down to 100% water. Grr. I'm guessing that the sucking-to-sleep association is more of an issue than hunger in DD's case. Once we get rid of the bottle entirely, I'm guessing there will be a few tears, as I don't really know a gradual way to do that.

[mel_mama]

Thanks all.  I didn't even think of diluting the milk slowly over time until it's primarily water.  Great idea.  Yes, the teething probably isn't the best time to start doing anything extreme, BUT I think that if we start slowly diluting it could help.  Might not help so much with the bed-wetting though, in the short-term...  Hopefully it wont take too long, I'm too tired of changing sheets in the middle of the night.  :( 

We usually just use homeopathic teething remedies, but in my desperation, I did buy some dissolving acetometophin tablets tonight...  Hopefully they will help.

[sillysmile]

If you think teething pain is an issue, you might also consider ibuprofen, which has anti-inflammatory properties in addition to providing pain relief. Acetaminophen is good for pain, but doesn't have this added advantage.