Breastfeeding/ night weaning/ sleep Advice please!!!

[Emiliemoo]

Hi,

My DD will be one at the end of April. We still breastfeed and we do BLW; she eats really well.

It was always my intention to wean her from the breast once she turned one. I am on a couple of Facebook bf support groups but don't want to post there as when I've seen other posts of a similar nature there are always a lot of responses about the benefits of feeding beyond one, the baby self weaning etc. I understand all of this and have a lot of respect for mothers who feed for longer but I know this is not for me. I do feel guilty about it. I hoped I'd get more balanced responses here.

A few weeks ago my DD just randomly slept right through one night. We didn't do anything different it just happened. In the weeks since she either slept through or would wake up just once to bf. Prior to this she was waking 2-3 times a night. I know sleep is developmental so I have taken this to mean she can/is ready to sleep through?!

Over the last week it has started going downhill again and she's back to 3 wake ups. I'm finding this difficult, not least because she has made my nipple/breast sore with her teeth (she doesn't bite but has kind of rubbed against my skin). Feeding from this breast is really painful right now and is making me dread feeds.

So I wanted advice about night weaning. I hadn't planned to do anything until she was one but I think if I night wean now it will make the whole process easier but how do I do this?! Any tips for successful night weaning or is this not a good plan. I would still feed in a morning and before bed.

Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated please!!

Hoping someone has some advice? Or to be honest, just some encouragement

I know sleep is developmental so I have taken this to mean she can/is ready to sleep through?!

Basically, a baby who is born at term and is hitting growth targets probably has no nutritional need for night feeds after the age of about six months. On the other hand, my friends who combined long-term nursing with cosleeping and being against any form of sleep training, all ended up with toddlers who were still waking and nursing at night for a really long time. If she's waking at night demanding feeds, it's probably because you're letting her! (I don't mean that in a harsh way, just being blunt!) In terms of sleeping through the night, I'd forget about "readiness" (which I think is a bit of a dubious concept anyway) and just night wean her, honestly.

The starting point needs to be: she needs to be in a position to make up extra calories in the daytime through food, so she needs to be either self-feeding competently or accepting food off a spoon or both. She also needs to have some way of drinking fluid at night if she wakes up genuinely thirsty (because if she actually gets dehydrated for any reason, you don't want to end up caving and offering her the breast because then you will be back to square one). So she has to be able to drink water out of a straw cup, beaker or bottle of some kind.

If the above is in place, you can go ahead and night wean. You will hear people say that you can only night wean if your partner takes over at night, but this is really not true (my DH is crap at sleep deprivation, so I just did it myself). My baby was only about 8mo old though. I started off by reducing the amount of minutes per feed, over the course of several days. I held her and just said "night night, time to sleep" again and again. There was quite a lot of crying and protesting, nevertheless! Once we were down to about 30 seconds I just stopped altogether. You need to expect some wailing--it's not realistic to expect otherwise. But it only takes a few days in most cases.

I found that cutting down feeds over the course of several days was helpful to give me the emotional reassurance that she wasn't going to starve to death--once they are down to just a nip at the breast, you have to face the fact that they have no nutritional need for night feeds any more and this is just habit, and then it becomes psychologically much, much easier to cut off the feeds altogether.

You might want to warn your neighbors in advance that there will be some crying if you live in a flat. And pick a weekend so that it matters less if you have some very disrupted nights.

Thank you. I think you are absolutely right, I am letting her wake for feeds So this is what she is used to.

She can feed herself really well and drinks from a 360 cup so no worries about making sure she is full and her thirst is met.

I think I just need to bite the bullet and do it. I work part time so could start tomorrow night as I am not back at work until Monday.

Thank you for responding. I felt quite confident about a lot of aspects of parenting (she is my first) but for some reason i need some handholding when it comes to decisions about breastfeeding. I don't know why

I need to do this with my breastfed dd who is 15 months. Didn't want to breastfeed this long but it is so hard to stop and she just screams and screams at night if I don't feed her and her dad tries to sort her or give her a bottle so I end up giving in and feeding her. I think she would start sleeping better at night if she couldn't have breast milk. So I need to just stop. I have to go away for work next week so won't be here for 1 night and then the next bed time so will see if that works as dont know how else to stop when she doesn't want to.
Sorry not really got any tips bit I have found it hard.