Dropping the dream bottle

When is a good time to drop the dream bottle? Is it necessary to drop it?


My daughter is 11.5 months old and has been sleeping thru the night since she was 8 weeks old (other than a couple of relapses). I put her down at 8.30pm and I give her her dream bottle at 10.30 and most nights she sleeps til 7am. Gina Ford's book suggests dropping the dream bottle very early on. I am thinking of dropping it becos she is currently having about 600 ml of milk a day and by the time she is 1 year old Gina Ford suggests 350ml.


Sorry - one more question - my daughter is still on the first formula - becos my pedio advised us that if she still likes the first formula then let her stay on it becos it is easier to digest and there is less sugar in it than the follow-on.


Thanks for your help.


HF

You can certainly drop it by 11 months. And you can drop formula too as long as she eats a good quantity of solids. Milk should do it.


Phase it out by giving her less and less. She should easily be able to go the time without nourishment.

Yes, you can drop the dream feed. Of course, you can be flexible though and if she happens to wake at midnight, maybe you want to give her some milk to settle her back to sleep.


Regarding formula, babies can have cow's milk from 12 months on. With our baby, it seemed to make her poo a bit runny, plus she was a bit fussy with food so we decided to keep using 50% formula (which is fortified with other vitamins, iron etc) and 50% cow's milk.

Its only necessary if you feel that it is interfering with other milk/ food intake times. We dropped it around 8 months as a) whenever he took the dream feed he would drink very little in the morning and to me the morning one was more important, b) we seemed to be disrupting his sleep unnecessarily- he was just irritated at that time and would refuse to drink many times. I did monitor the day time milk and solids more to make sure he was full during the day. Our pediatrician also recommended to keep him on formula till atleast he is 18 mo.-2 years but he is on the toddler one now which is from 1+. Not sure whats the sugar content like.