At what age did you find baby dropped overnight breast feeds

[Eirlys1986]

Hi all, just a general poll of people’s experiences to help me get things in perspective in my head. My son is 11 months now and I an redoing a bit of sleep training as he recently had a cold which threw things off. Prior to this he was either sleeping through (rarely) or doing decent chunks of sleep with one feed overnight. I am now in a position of knowing he doesn’t “need” a feed overnight but thinking to myself if he’s done a decent 6-8 hour chunk of sleep then wakes shall I just offer a quick feed to resettle till morning or should I persevere in trying to cut all feeds overnight. I just wondered what experience breast feeding mums have with when they found baby largely dropped the night feed with them? Cheers

At around 8 months my boy's sleep was in the toilet. I gently encouraged him to settle without a feed/being picked up, and he got it over a couple of weeks. He had previously been sleeping through, so it was just the feed to sleep association - got that nipped in the bud when he started sleeping better again.

First question is do you fed him to sleep or does he go down awake and then settle by himself to sleep?

Mine were much younger and tbh they just squawked for a bit then went back to sleep rather than being upset.

I feed him but don’t let him feed to sleep so he goes back to the cot awake and then self settles 👍🏻

When I fully weaned them both times - around 15 months and 11 months.

8/9 months. We decided that when she woke up, DH would go in and try to settle her rather than me. If he couldn't, the plan was that I would then feed her.
Took a few nights for her to stop waking up at all during the night, and it never took DH more than a minute or so to settle her back to sleep.

Same as other pps, I had to do some night weaning, did it after 12 or 13 months I think, got husband to go in first and use a sleep time phrase, song for bedtime, lay next to cot and hold hands/pat the bed so they laid down. Then I took over next few nights.
For me, the main feed that was difficult to cut out was the early morning 5/6am ish feed, as they'd wake up and I'd just feed to try and get them back to sleep! I'm not an early morning person!!

Dd was about 2 yrs 7 months old
She would wake up at about 3/4 am for a quick feed then fall back to sleep again. It was out of habit of course & I had no issue with it so let it continue until she naturally weaned herself a few months ago.

I night weaned when DD was 17 months because I was pregnant. She’d still happily have night feeds now if I let her but I restrict her to 2 feeds a day for my own sanity (2y2m)

I did night weaning as part of sleep training around 9-10 months.

Mine didn't really. I might weaned her at about 22 months. Then I weaned her entirely at 25 months.

Ds was 9 months.. I was on my knees with lack of sleep.

3 years

Mine didn’t stop until I made the active decision to night wean at 2y 4m ish!

6 months, I was told by someone (can't remember who but I clearly valued their advice?!) that healthy babies were perfectly capable of getting through the night without milk. Tbh it worked a treat from 6 to 9 months and DS slept a treat. However it went pear shaped after that and he woke a lot at night but I didn't want to go back to night feeds so never did. In retrospect I think I should have...but hey that was 10 years ago and he's fine now!

I definitely wouldn’t reintroduce a feed if he’s dropped them previously, and is growing well. My two tiny (10th percentile) babies dropped their feeds at 7 months. My giant (85th percentile) dropped them at 5 months. I’d make the occasional exception for illness, if I was concerned they weren’t eating enough during the day and if truly nothing was settling them (that maybe happened one or two times each), but otherwise my DH would resettle them to sleep when they occasionally woke up.

I think my son stopped feeding 3 or 4 times per night when he was about 11 months old. Then my periods came back despite feeding during the day. I think he required lots of settling until 14 months but never wanted boob again in the night.

One feed in the night from 3-5m, then sleeping through from 5m+

Tried to night wean DS at 12 months as I was back at work, not a success. Tried again at 15 months and it magically worked (well, a bit of shouting and DH attending to night wakings for the duration).

DD was about 2yrs ish, but it's difficult to remember as I was tired most of the time. Both teens now and both lie in all morning if not at school

My two dc (a girl and a boy) were able to drop night breast feeds as I sleep trained them at 10 months after putting them in their own room at 6 months.

I think babies will carry on wanting night breast feeds for years unless you teach them how to get back to sleep without you. And you are doing them a massive favour if you do sleep train them, btw. People talk about the benefits to parents in the context of sleep training, but the babies benefit enormously too more to the point.

2.5 years

Nearly 14mo DD still feeds multiple times in the night and honestly not sure how we'd stop, if I send DH in to try to resettle her she just gets more and more irate until I feed her then it takes her ages to calm down and drop back off to sleep. As it is I'm happy to feed her through the night and co-sleep after the first wake to deal with it so neither me or her are waking up fully when she feeds.

18 months here and she still wakes for it. I'm tired so don't really object but I am hoping to wean soon as I'm fed up of the whole feeding thing tbh.

19 months and still going

At around 12 months, we got my partner to settle her. It was hard for her to get used to at first but was okay After maybe 2 or 3 nights. A bit of crying but couldn't deal with the sleep deprivation any longer!