Night weaning at 7 months - is this ok?

[RaisingMrC]

Hello,

I'm considering sleep training my 7 mo DS as he currently wakes every couple of hours through the night and feeds back to sleep every time.

I've been reading Andrea Grace's book and it seems quite sensible - though she advises night weaning at 6 months and that at 6 months and older, babies can go 10 - 12 hours without a feed.

My DS's frequent night feeds are really small and just to settle him to sleep rather than hunger iyswim, but I'm worried 10 - 12 hours will be too long for him. He still feeds pretty frequently in the day (2-3 hourly) and I'm doing baby led weaning so he is not really established on solids yet. He is growing well though. Wondered what other people's views and experiences were of this.

My other concern is that if I night wean to this extent, it will affect my milk during day time feeds too - and I'm not ready to completely stop breastfeeding at all!

Not every baby sleeps through magically from 6 months even if they are formula fed and eating loads. It's not about feeding decisions exclusively.
Every couple of hours seems a lot though and I can totally understand why you are looking for solutions.
It might be more realistic to look for a way for him to wake up just once or twice and have a proper feed rather than 5 little ones I think.

I think any advice that doesn't allow for individuality is wrong - all babies are different.

My 8 week old will sleep for 6 or 7 hours at a stretch (not every night though!) and that's brilliant for us. I wouldn't need or want her to do much longer tbh as I want to get milk into her to ease my full boobs after 6 hours!

I night weaned my DD when she was around 19 mo, that was 9 months ago and there are no signs of her sleeping through! Some children are just not sleepers. Are you co-sleeping?

Is your DS in a creche/with a child minder by any chance? DD has just started one and isn't taking much formula during the day and is now making up for it at night! But she was the same as your DS before - on a bad night she can wake on average every hour and need to feed to go back asleep.

I agree that cutting down the feeds to one during the night should be fine at this stage though.

Thanks for your thoughts. I agree it seems a long time with no food or drink - though I think for us the issue is that he uses the boob as a dummy and sucks himself back to sleep. We are co-sleeping, which I think has caused this state of affairs. He hasn't started at daycare - just loves being on the breast, day and night!

I know this is a feeding thread rather than sleeping, but how do I ease him towards waking only once or twice for fuller feeds?

The book 'the no cry sleep solution' has lots of ideas and is written by a co-sleeping bfing mum not some nursery nurse "expert" with no kids!

No way could my 6 month old go 10-12 hours without a feed - at least not without a lot of trauma.

However, I did limit nightfeeds for him as he was waking every hour or two and feeding back to sleep. Started off by not feeding him to sleep at bedtime, as they need to be able to settle without feeding if you want them to be able to settle themselves! I fed him at 10.30pm and 3-4am, and any other time he woke up DP went to him and rocked him back to sleep. Within a couple of weeks he was only waking for those feeds, and once he was eating more in the day the 3-4am feed has naturally become more like 6-7am. He now feeds at bedtime 6.30pm, dreamfeed at 11pm, and wakes for a feed around 6am when I bring him into bed with me for an hour.

And I moved him out of my bed and into a cot in his own room at the same time as limiting night feeds - it wasn't possible when he was in bed with me. It's really important that DP goes to him if he wakes in the night, as if I do of course he wants to feed and can't understand why I won't feed him. He doesn't expect DP to feed him so is happy with a cuddle.

My DD was just the same until 3-4 weeks ago (she's now 8 months). She would wake every 1.5-2 hours and need a suck (not even a feed) to go back to sleep. Then we had one night when she woke up at 10, would fall asleep on the boob but then wake up as soon as I put her down. This carried on for about an hour. Then I went to bed because I was worn out and my DH took over and did some controlled crying. It took another hour before she went to sleep and then she woke every 1.5-2 hours like usual for the rest of the night.

Then the next night she slept from 7 until 5.30! I couldn't believe it! Now she usually sleeps until at least 5.30 and we've had a couple of nights where it's been 7-7.

I now feel like a different person. I don't think I realised quite how exhausted I was. I think my DD needed to work out how to go back to sleep by herself. I knew she wasn't waking due to hunger because she wasn't really feeding. We're also doing BLW and I'm still bfing every couple of hours during the day without any problems. I know CC isn't for everyone and it was horrible hearing her cry just for that hour, but it's lovely now.

MoonUnitAlpha and Liloosmum - Thanks for your experiences, it is interesting to hear what you did.

I do have the NCSS - I should have another read of it.

I have no experience of night weaning and I never co-slept but wanted to comment about your supply. My ds1 stopped feeding at night at 14 weeks, he fed every 3 hrs during the day and I didn't start any solids at all until 23 weeks. My supply was absolutely fine with him having no feeds from 8pm until 6am and he obviously didn't need anything during that time as he slept the whole time, his choice not mine. I continued to bf him until he was 15 months old.

I would also like to give all those still feeding at night my respect! As ds1 slept through from such a young age and even when he didn't only ever woke once for a feed I had no idea how hard it is, ds2 is 21 weeks old and is regularly waking 2-3 times a night and it's killing me.

My DD was the same at 7mo, waking every 2 hours to have a quick feed before going back to sleep. I was going mad with sleep deprivation. At 8/9 months I started doing a modified Jay Gordon method (drjaygordon.com/attachment/sleeppattern.html). He doesn't recommend starting before 12 months but I was desperate. Essentially I chose a stretch of time (11pm - 4am) when I reduced her feeding - I only fed for 2 mins (which I timed by singing in my head) when she woke between those times. Although sometimes I fell asleep so it went on for a lot longer! Then I patted/rubbed back/whatever to get her back to sleep. Once she was ok with that (took about 4 days - 1 week for each stage) I reduced it further so eventually I stopped feeding and just soothed her, then I just spoke to her so she knew I was there, and then she stopped waking up - a miracle! She still woke around 10/11pm and again at 4/5am but it meant I had a good long stretch of sleep in between, which I was much happier with and carried on like that until she was around 15/16 months when I started reducing the 4am feed as well.

It didn't have any effect on my milk supply during the day, or for the remaining night feeds, and I continued breastfeeding until DD was just over 2.

i nightweaned ds2 at 12 months and he started sleeping through within a few weeks.

i reluctantly night weaned dd (3rd child) at 7 months, because the no sleep was a real killer with 3 kids, but she continued waking up every few hours even without the feeding. I just cuddled her back to sleep each time. She's now just past her 1st birthday and in the last week or so has finally started sleeping through from 7pm to about 5am.

Unfortunately I think the fact is, they sleep through when they're ready. But I did find it helped stopping the night feeding because at least dh could settle her once or twice a night to give me a break.