Night weaning not working.

[Butteryflakycrust83]

My 22 month old is still very much a fan of breastfeeding and all attempts to night wean have failed miserably. If she stirs in the night and she doesn't get it, she wakes herself up getting upset and then that's us up for an hour and the least and then we are exhausted.

Only once has she ever slept through without it. On a bad night she is latched on and off the whole night. Every few weeks my nipple is totally destroyed.

We have tried having DH put her to bed and she stayed up until 4am.

If he tries to comfort her rather than me, she goes bananas and wakes up.

She can fall asleep and sleep fine at nursery so I am at a loss now and whether I just need to stick with it until her speech and understanding gets better so I can try the whole 'No milk until the sun shines' stuff.

Is this something i just need to carry on with for now?

Hello! Sounds so tough!! daughter who is now 15 months has always been a fan of waking to breastfeed every night and she was going through a phase where I think she was trying to sleep on the boob for the night, no thanks! 😯 the only thing that worked for us was I gone out of the house for the entire night! Was back to work properly and did 3 night shifts in a row so I was gone from 1830 to 0830 the following day for 3 nights. So they just had to figure it out 😀 She still bf twice during the day if I'm there but I'm keen to not be doing it through the night any more.

How many nights did you try dh dealing with her?

We have only tried a few times. I wonder if this is going to have to be one of those things, like potty training, where we just commit a few days of sleepless nights to crack it?

Yes I think you need a run of evenings, maybe a long weekend, to do it. My friend had a similar issue and she ended up going away for the weekend on a mini break for three nights or so so there was no ambiguity or temptation to step in, and when she came back, DH and child had found their own kind of groove.

My 18 month old is similar, I put plasters over my nipples lol and told her they were ouchy and no more milk in bed. Before bedtime I sit downstairs and keep offering the 'last milk, no milk in bed' and then make sure she goes to sleep in bed without feeding to sleep (she has a dummy).
I did this for a couple of days and showed her the plasters when she woke up and said no more, ouchy.
Hasn't solved it entirely as she still wakes at about 430/5am but I feed her then and say 1 milk then sleep.

I would recommend something other than a normal plaster maybe as peeling those off was a bit uncomfortable 😂

Yeah, at 22months she's no longer needing to feed that often, it's really just habit & comfort.
You can either try supplementing with cows milk in a cup or bottle rather than a breastfeed (what we did) or go cold turkey at night time & just wait out the drama. It'll be unpleasant for you all but it will eventually work if you stick at it.

It will take a few days to crack this and you have to be consistent.

I used controlled crying to night wean and it took 4 days. The first night was the worst and they cried for over an hour (me checking on them every 10 mins). The second night it was only 30 mins and by night 4 they went back to sleep after the first 2 min interval.

Oof, that sounds horrendous!! My son used to be fed-to-sleep or he just wouldn't sleep; it took 3 months of sleep training to break it totally.

It's not going to be a quick fix unfortunately; I would advise powering through with Dad trying to settle her as this takes away the temptation to just feed her. If she's used to multiple feeds a night though I wouldn't try and cut them all out at once - work on one at a time or maybe alternate who goes to resettle her.

How do you put her to bed - do you feed her to sleep? Have you asked the nursery how they put her down for naps and compare with how you do it? Is she maybe teething and wants the extra comfort? (My son spent 2 months solid teething and there were sleepless nights in the constant feeding).

When you go in to resettle, what do you do? I used to default to grab him and feed, but when he woke up every 2 hours it clearly wasn't effective. I would advise always first try and resettle without picking her up. Now 2 months ago I would have said "wtf that's impossible", but I solely resettle now with mere presence in his room. It's not infallible - last night it took over half an hour to coax him back to sleep.

When she wakes, always try putting your hand on her tummy or maybe holding her hand and judge her reaction. For me, sometimes he instantly calmed down and sometimes it would take a while. I would pat him in a slow rhythm to calm him down and eventually he'd drift off again. Give it at least 5 minutes of this, and if she's no calmer then do pick her up and maybe try rocking her to sleep or at least to drowsy. Go to feeding as a last resort.

It won't be quick and she will grow out of it eventually, but do keep gently encouraging her to fall asleep without the breast.

Hope this has given you some helpful tips!

I night weaned at 17 months. I was pregnant so didn’t have time to do something slow / super gentle as I was in agony.

We talked about boobies going to sleep at night for a day or two before hand and then I went for it one night. We still fed to sleep initially but any night wakes I wouldn’t feed her and offered her a cuddle instead. Then she could feed again in the morning.

The first night was bad. She was furious but by maybe the third night she would wake and ask for a cuddle. After a few more weeks we transitioned away from cosleeping.

I still feed to sleep when it’s my turn to do bedtime (DH and I alternate) but the milk bar is then closed until the morning. DH now goes to her if she does wake in the night and can’t settle herself (it’s definitely his turn after me doing it for so long!)

Definetly. Pick a week.

Thanks for all the really great advice - she has such a little temper and I hate the lack of sleep so it is just easier to let her have a boob buffet all night but we will try the above and suck it up for the greater good!

At nursery, she literally goes and finds her little bed (they have pictures up!) lays down and goes to sleep alone, so I know its mainly comfort rather than food at this stage.

I don't have any advice as such, but I had to comment as I'm in pretty much the exact same situation with my 21 month old! Similarly, she self settles for bedtime and every nap with no issues, but still wakes multiple times and "needs" feeding to go back to sleep. I've set myself the goal of night weaning starting this Thursday and I'm going to give myself a good month to crack it 🤞🏼 good luck OP, keep us updated with how you get on xx

Weaned DS at 21 mo (well that's when it was done, we started about 18 mo)

Never sent DH instead, didn't stop bedsharing. Only thing that changed, after a lot of preparation (I got VERY fed up of reading 'loving comfort') was we didn't feed back to sleep but he was gently unlatched if he didn't do so himself and then as that started to be effective, a cuddle was offered first, but if that didn't immediately help, i did BF.

He didn't cry, I wasn't stressed and we finished on a good note

I'm in exactly the same position with my 13 month old, fine at nursery to go to sleep, no bf in the day and has a cup of cow's milk before bed. But at nighttime, oof, does she lose the plot when I don't feed her or god forbid pull her off when she's playing with it. Judging by the advice I think committing to a few sleepless nights is the way to go too. Good luck 🙂 x

Good luck all! Last night I times it - from 8pm - 5pm she was latched for 3.5 hours. I am just the dummy now.
I am going to a gig in a few weeks, so I am going to start not offering it straight away when she stirs and go from there, with the goal of my night out bring Dads starting bed time alone.