DH wants me to night wean

[Mamabear04]

DH wants me to night wean our 6mo. DS was 7.7kg when weighed back at the start of December and has taken to weaning really well and is up at 3 small meals a day. He is EBF and will feed 1-2 times a night between 12-1am and between 3-5am. I'm struggling to wonder if its OK to night wean so young. DD dropped down to one feed per night at 6mo and then stopped it altogether around 8-9 months when she solidly started sleeping though. What does everyone else think? Should I try to drop DS down to one feed? Or altogether? Is it too young?

Something I've just read- By 6 months, almost all healthy babies are physically and neurologically able to go 12 hours without food.”

Fair enough if the baby stops it themselves and you can night wean at 12 months no problem. My son slept through the night from 11 weeks and 9 months now and waking up once for a feed and I know its for comfort. I'm going to night wean. He gets all his calories during the day. I feed him every 2 hours

If they are not waking for it, great, but if baby is waking for it then yes, they do need it.

At 6 months baby is getting a substantial amount of nutrition from breastmilk. No way should you be limiting breastmilk, day or night.

My son feeds less than 5 mins then back to sleep. I'm going to go gradually less time over few weeks to night wean. Not doing it cold turkey.

And why does he want you to do this?

This

In my experience the best way to move towards no night waking was to break the feeding to sleep associations. Once they would self soothe a bit then dh took over bed times and night wakings for a while so they found they didn't get milk, just Daddy if they woke in the night. Is your dh suggesting that, in which case when you are ready then let him go for it, he might want to book some time off work if he is not used to waking at night. If he was planning for you to stop the night feeds then he needs to rethink the plans.

How do you feel about it and why has he made that suggestion?

If you have been saying that you’re very tired and that you wish he could help more with nights, and if he’s made the offer to go into baby himself and try to settle them without feeding then I don’t think ‘fuck off’ is an appropriate response really! A 6MO can go overnight without a feed providing they get enough during the day, doesn’t mean that they will, but physically they are capable and it wouldn’t be unsafe or anything like that, especially if the number of feeds was gradually reduced. Of course that doesn’t mean you have to night wean and it’s perfectly ok to say you don’t feel baby is ready yet.

I EBFd both of one til about 6-7 months, then transitioned to a bit of bottle and night weaned them over a week or so. Plenty of milk in the day, just not overnight. I don’t believe for a minute that nutritionally babies up t 18 months need night feeds. Emotionally maybe, but nutritionallly no.

Yeah definitely emotionally up to 18 months not nutritionally. As long as they get all the calories during the day it's fine

And there was no leaving to cry either. I did have help though. Baby wouldn’t have accepted a bottle from me

@Newnamefornewyear2023 It’s developmental.

Wish him luck - as you would be delighted for him to complete this task whilst you spend a couple of nights (I can't see him lasting any longer than that) away overnight whilst he settles baby into a 12 hour sleep routine.

Idiot.

Its safe to night wean as long as you feed very 2 to 3 hours during the day and get 3 meals a day

Every*

The damage isn’t nutritional after 1. It’s developmental and done to the neural pathways in the brain.

Do tell me about the noticeable neurological damage in children who are night weaned at 1+?

Baby is fine to night wean now. They don't need to feed during the night if they get all the calories during the day

Right?! My kid slept through from six weeks, does that mean his neurological pathways never got going in the first place??

The long term research is out there for you to find if you’re interested in it.

Is there some massive back story as to why your dh thinks his opinion is worth more than your baby's needs? Why is he getting involved? It's not him feeding so what's his problem?

If there isn't a back story and he just thinks baby should start sleeping through now, or he wants to share night wakings rather than you having them all, then he is massively in the wrong. You probably won't need to conciously night wean at all, baby will give it up when he's ready, but if he's still going in annother year and you want to stop, then that's time enough to do it. 6 months is too young.

Nothing coming up for me 🤷🏼‍♀️

Ooh well both my DC are screwed then. Good to know!