Water - how boring - I'll sleep - does this work??

[julesr]

More often than not my 7.5 month old DS is down to one night waking now and, provided he's had a good day with his solids, will only need a quick bf to go back to sleep.

I've heard more than once that you can try settling them with a bottle of cooled boiled water and the idea is that they will either realise they are not going to get the good stuff and decide to sleep through - or that giving them water in the night makes them take more milk during the day and therefore eliminate the need for milk during the night.

Does this actually work? Has anyone tried this? Success or dismal failure?

[only1micp]

Hi there

Well it didnt work for us. I tried it at 6 or 7 months for a good 2-4 weeks and here we are at 10months old and she is waking now more than ever.

Good luck...hope ur DS starts sleeping through for you

[Tobily]

My nearly 8 mth old DS has had a really bad time for the last three weeks with teething and croup.
During this period he started waking at 9.30 wanting a feed (in addition to all his usual feeds later in the night). I was giving him this while he was sick and cranky.
Now he's better and the tooth is through he is still waking for it so a few nights ago I decided to try the cooled water.
The first night he woke, I didn't pick him up but gave him a bit of a suck on a bottle of cooled water while he lay in the cot. He went straight back to sleep.
The second night he was having none of it, and screamed as soon as the bottle was in his mouth. So I took him out and gave him a quick breastfeed in the dark. He went back to sleep.
The third night he stirred a bit and started grumbling at 9.30 - I offered him the water but he didn't want it, so I popped his dummy in and he went back to sleep.
Last night he did not stir or wake at all until after midnight

So I think it's worth trying but it may take a few days and a bit of perserverance before they get the message.

[christy]

I tried it with Matilda from around 9 months as she was waking 3 times in the night and we tried for 2 weeks with one of the feeds and it was a dismal failure, so we tried it with all night wakings & it turned into her being awake and screaming for an hour even being cuddled by either one of us. We gave up after 3 nights of trying it.

[Claire]

It did work for us but only when DD was ready.

At 11 months I got pregnant (didn't know intially and later lost the baby) and she night weaned of her own accord. Then woke a week or so later asked for boobie, I offered her water she said no and went back to sleep.

Before that I had tried and if she was unwilling, just breastfed her back to sleep.