How do I night wean my breast obsessed toddler? Very sleep deprived here. 😱

[BarrenFieldofFucks]

DD is nearly 2, and feeding more at night than he did a year ago. He wants feeding multiple times in the night, and doesn't seem to be able to sleep without twiddling one of my poor abused nipples. I think he is eating less in the day than he should because of his obsession with milk.

I am exhausted! I don't know quite how to tackle it? The previous two children were v different. I was wondering about sleeping downstairs at the weekend and letting breastmilkless DH deal with him, and see if a few nights of that breaks the habit?

When I wanted to night wean mine I gradually became completely unavailable at night. DP did the night wakings, first before a certain time and then we moved the time later and later until the rule was no milk at night at all and Mummy wasn't coming until the morning. They could have as many cuddles from him as they wanted and they could have a drink of water, but Mummy wasn't available. Yes, they were furious at first but they weren't alone or without comfort so I didn't feel bad about it. It took a while for them to adjust, even though we did it gradually so in theory they shouldn't have been hungry.

Once they did get it, they stopped waking up at night at all, barring illness and nightmares. Very soon I was able to comfort them at night again without them expecting milk, even though they were still breastfed during the day.

You are lucky you have a partner to support you in this - with a loving but milkless father there, she will be absolutely fine. Ours were also in their own rooms, which helped a lot. They were also quite a bit younger than 2 but the same method should probably work!

Thanks for your response! He doesn't have his own room which makes it challenging, but I agree with DH may be the key here.

He's a very confident, thriving child so I have no doubt he'll be fine, but it isn't a scenario we've encountered to this degree before!

When night weaning my DC I spent several nights wearing a vest top tucked into my pyjama pants and a high necked pyjama top over it, also tucked in, to prevent them from helping themselves to a boob. If they woke in the night I let them into the bed for cuddles but no milk. The first couple of nights were rough so I'd recommend starting on a weekend where you don't necessarily need to be up as early or dont have work, etc. After the first couple of nights they accepted it and it wasn't long after that they stopped waking in the night full stop, youngest DC now only wakes up if she's unwell or has had a bad dream.