BF 10 mo - Wanting to stop night feeding but DD doesnt drink any other type of milk during day

[eversoslightlytired]

I've posted before about this problem but DD will not accept any other milk; expressed, formula, cows; in any type of bottle or beaker. She therefore only has breast milk before bed and during the night.

I really want to stop breastfeeding now but am unsure what to do due to the fact it is the only milk she has. She is also unable to self-settle yet because she uses the boob to get to sleep at night and when she wakes up during the middle of the night.

Does anyone have any tips on what I should do?

Cold turkey always work. Just be prepared to see lots and lots of crying. A mum in my group did it to prepare her DD for when she went back to work at 6mo. Took her 7 weeks to crack her LO. But if you are withdrawing completely I'd assume she'll crack sooner? In the day, you can increase her solids to 3 meals and 2 snacks. In the evenings it'll be formula in a bottle or nothing.

Oh and it doesn't mean she'll self settle. Plenty of FF babies wake up for bottles through the night btw.

Oh blimey!! Shame about the self-settle thing! I think you are right and I am just going to have to bit the bullet and not give in. Just a bit worried because I know she will not have anything else and her milk intake will drop dramatically.

"Took her 7 weeks to crack her LO" - bloody hell, what a horrible way to treat a baby.

Sorry, I haven't got any practical advice OP, as I'm still night-feeding my 12mo. However, if you can wait another few weeks until your DD turns one, it would probably be best for her esp if she won't take other milk. You could then up her calcium intake through lots of yoghurt, cheese, etc

Is there a particular reason you want to wean, maybe we could find ways around it?

waspandbee I don't know the OP reason to wean. But night weaning is much more complicated because it is usually linked to a wish of sleep though. Also during the day, you can replace with yoghurt and cheese. But babies have a very strong urge to suckle. If they don't have breast, they'll still want a bottle. A friend's 2.5yo still need bottles overnight (or is it just first thing morning now), despite lots of talks about big boys drink from a cup.

I think it is because I never intended feeding beyond six months. Everything was going to plan with DD having a bottle a day to get her used to bottles. Then at six months, after a bout of sickness, she refused bottles. Tried her with cups, beakers, expressed and formula but she refuses all of it.

My parents would love to have her overnight (as would I love them too) but can't because of the whole night feeding thing and to be perfectly honest I want my boobs back now!

In that case, can you hold out a couple more months to your DD being a year old? You can start by getting your DD to 3 meals and 2 snacks during the day, and dropping all the day bf for the next two months. Then at a year, you can work on night weaning to a bottle solely? This way you know she'll still be having lots of bf before 12mo?

She rarely has any in the day (going back to work helped that one) so it is literally just the night feeds now. I wish she would take a bottle but unfortunately she wont

would you still want them to have her if she continued to wake even with night weaning? I think it's too early and you should wait to a year personally. DD weaned around 14 months but it was still a fair while before her sleep improved.

Does she wake in the night and need resettling or just the initial going to sleep bit? Do your family have her during the day on a weekend for you to relax and sleep?

I would really recommend controlled crying so your lo learns to self settle. It is horrible at first and makes you feel like the worst parent in the world but it does work. We have just trained our 9 mo DS and he started sleeping through (11-6). However, you also shouldn't use your breast as a comforter - for food only! On the separate issue of not drinking, my DS only drinks through a straw so you could try that. Use a small straw with several wholes, like on Rubicon juice boxes.

Thanks everyone for the advice. At the moment we have been horrendous nights as she is teething and has a stinking cold so everything has gone out the window since last week! Might try and see if there are some cups or beakers which use straws.

She needs resettling everytime she wakes.

I think I know at some point I will have to do the controlled crying but really dreading it as did it with DS and it was horrendous!

Try and separate the sleeping and getting enough milk in your head. IME mine have all stopped night feeding at 9ish months when they were having lots of food during the day, they were having milk early morning and evening , sometime s mid afternoon but i was offering that rather than them demanding. If i forgot so did they. So I didn't feel they needed milk at night - that doesn't mean they just slept though - rather if they woke, which they frequently did (and do in the case of ds3 15m) I resettled them in other ways than feeding. I found that feeding them back to sleep no longer worked anyway.
I weaned ds3 at 12m and he is very uninterested in other milks and never has more than a small beaker a day. The HV advised me not to worry as long as he was eating other dairy.
So my advice - feed in the evening and morning for a couple of months, then you don't have to worry she's got getting enough milk but you can focus on the self-settling.

If your not happy with controlled crying then why do it?

Try other more gentialer way's to help her learn to seatel first. A lot of people seem to recomend the 'No Cry sleep solution' as a good book for this one.

I can see where you are coming from but I think I would carry on a few more months personally. My ds is 7 months, ebf and still night feeds. Its not ideal but it's all part and parcel of making a commitment to breastfeed a child. He obviously still wants it, for whatever reason, and surely that's the idea of feeding on demand. My ds was feeding very little in the day but 2 hrly at night until recently when I have pushed it out to three hrly. I just use other methods to settle him for a little while. If he started to cry however, I would feed him. Really not a fan of controlled crying and don't like the idea of 'cold turkey'. Nursing at night isn't like an addiction to smoking, it's a natural and normal part of breastfeeding and they do need milk, whether it's breast or formula until they are one. Hanging on in there for a couple more months surely isn't that much of a problem in the grand scale of things.

'you also shouldn't use your breast as a comforter - for food only!' ValeriaS

I'm sorry but breastfeeding is not just about feeding, it is such a great way to comfort your child and there is nothing wrong with that.