Talk to me about night weaning

[Loislane78]

What age was your LO?
How did you do it?
How long did it take?

TIA :)

I was just thinking about this as I'm considering it. My LO is 7months.

DS is 11 months, was up for a feed twice last night, really need to stop this malarkey but just not ready for his level of screaming , will watch this thread in the hope of a miracle

DS was 11m. Dh went in whenever he woke in the night for about a month. Then we started sharing it, and about 3 months later he was sleeping through more often than not.

Bump

12 months as followed Jay Gordon's method. By then she woke up 1-2 times per night and was in the same room as us (in a cot). We moved her into her own room first and once she settled got DH to settle her between 12-5. Gradually extended time, took under 2 weeks and she has been sleeping through except when ill or teething. Woke up really early for ages tho...

dd is 12 months now and i am seriously considering night weaning but i think she would have an epic meltdown hence why i am wary....

am currently doing this with one of my 6 month old twins. He had a bottle during the night and sometimes numerous (!!) breastfeeds during the night. We started last friday by just giving him the bottle and dp went in and calmed every time he woke. First night was horrific, then the following night he only woke once. Snce then, he's woken a couple of times during the night but will be quickly cvalmed by dp. Slept through on wed night but had a bottle last night. No boob since the weekend though! We're thinking of stopping the bottle too now cos last night he hardly drank any, just wants the comfort. So so far going quite well. We'll see how it pans out.

Think his bottle refusing sister will be a harder nut to crack....

When DD was about 6 or 7 months she was sleeping through most nights but if she woke I would just breastfeed her so she would go straight back to sleep. The HV told me I was "making a rod for my own back" so I decided to stop and never fed her again at night. The first night she cried for a long time ( we just left her to cry) and the second slightly less, then she didn't cry again. Babies don't need feeding in the night once they reach that age. Good luck!

Thanks :). My DD is 7.5 mo and I was going to start in a couple of weeks. She currently has 2 BFs but one isn't a proper feed and she's not that interested at breakfast; this along with frequent wake ups makes me think it's time. She eats a fair amount in the day for her age - mixture of finger foods and spoon feeding do I might offer water at night and see what happens....

*so

13 months - also Dr Jay Gordon's method - less than 2 weeks, a couple of relapses, but now no feed at 19 months (similar to safetyzone she wakes way too early though )

You know your own baby well enough to make the decision. I come across babies with different habits, some are waking out of comfort, habit and others are genuinely hungry - I knew in my heart that DD was genuinely hungry at nighttime. I knew that nightweaning wasn't right until we hit 13 months, when milk wasn't actually satisfying her (breastfeeding). You'll know if / when it is right.

Dr Jay Gordon is a gentle method, I like that I could still cuddle, hold and sing to DD, just not feed her

DS3 wakes every hour for boob!!!!
He is 7 mo.
Dr Gordon sounds like my hero, off to google.

This is the link you want to Dr Jay Gordon's blog. It is a good read now, even if you don't plan on nightweaning yet.

When DS was 5mo we dropped the interaction during the night down a new notch every week or two and then stopped completely, and it felt fairly pain-free. I was going back to work when he was 7mo and I really wanted to stop the night feeds before I did as he's a firm bottle-refuser.
At that point he was waking up every 40mins for his dummy (so I was pretty desperate to do something!!) rather than a feed but asking for the boob at 12 and 3/4am.

To start with I pushed the feed that came around 12ish as late as I could - I tried to push it half an hour later every few days until it eventually merged with the 4am feed.
I simply refused to feed him until a bit later each time, but I picked up and cuddled etc.

I then did the same with the 4am feed until it was a reasonable time (around 6:30 for us). Still picked up and cuddled, just no feeding.

Then we tried not picking up anymore, just a few words and patting.
This was going well, but he was still waking for his dummy - until I left him to whinge for a few mins one night and I heard him scrabble around and then the distinctive Maggie Simpson sucking noise! He's slept surrounded by 4 dummies, in his own room for the last 3 weeks and he's no longer shouting for us between 7pm to 6am - hooray!!

It took a couple of months of gradually dialling it down for the whole thing, but the night weaning probably took a month.

Good luck!