To night wean DS?

[Aliveinwanderland]

DS is 8 months, breastfed apart from one 6oz formula bottle at night. He currently goes to bed at 7pm, bottle between 10-11pm, breastfeed between 2-4am. I am thinking he surely can't need the second night feed now?

My difficulty is I am back at work 3 days a week so he takes less milk these days. Do I need to keep up th night feeds to help maintain my supply?

I would love better sleep! He has done a 6 hour stretch 2/3 times in his life! Rest of the time has been waking every 2/3 hours since birth.

Do it - just be sensitive to when he actually is hungry. I might weaned at 8 months and found my LO didn't actually get hungry until about 5.30am. (Previously up 8/9 times a night). Just be prepared for tears for the first couple of nights.

I might weaned my BF son at 9 months as his sleep pattern was horrendous and then would only go back to sleep if I breast fed him. It was exhausting.

We used a variety of techniques though to address his sleep, it wasn't just night weaning alone. There were tears for 2-3 nights but he soon adapted.

I often end up cosleeping and am happy to keep doing this while we wean.

Following this thread with interest as my 8 month old DS has the same night pattern as yours, except he is formula fed, which I know makes a bit of a difference.

I've been thinking the same thing about not necessarily needing the 2-4am bottle, especially as he eats 3 good meals a day too!

So no actual advice (sorry!)

DS eats not too bad but is still getting the hang of food so I've been putting it off. However now I'm back st work the night feeds are killing me!

I'm thinking of offering water only and then rocking to sleep rather than feeding. Once he isn't needing the feed I aim to stop the rocking to sleep as well and encourage self settling but don't want to do it all at once.