How to night wean?

[LostSleep]

That's it really. Any tips on how to night wean a ebf 9 month old. Or at least cut down from every two hours to 1 or 2 feeds a night.

I think from 1 year is often the advice as they may still need the milk overnight?

When baby wakes, don't pick them up. Go and sit by the cot and put your hand on their tummy/back. Pat slowly and rhythmically. I did it in time with Ewan the sheep, and you can shhhh soothingly as well if you want

Give this a good 5 min to see if it works

If no success, pick them up. Hold them in sleeping position, bobbing gently up and down. Again, i did it in time with Ewan

Give it another good 5 min

If still no success, feed

Using the above, mine at 8 mo went from waking minimum 6 times a night to a couple of wakeups over a week or two. It wasn't long before he was sleeping through again

Good luck

Over the course of a couple of weeks I gradually cut down the length of feeds and then I started offering a sip of water, then moved to just a cuddle. Took about 2 weeks in total and then he just stopped waking up so much

Mine is a bit older (20 months) and I've recently successfully night weaned him. Much to my amazement, he would resettle with hair stroking or patting. I am however sleeping on a mattress on the floor in his room so I can get to him as soon as he wakes up, as any later and he gets too worked up.

Personally I would advise agaisnt getting into a situation where you're rocking to sleep. Mine would wake every 45-60mins for feeds from 4months, and so we started rocking him to sleep sometimes so that my DH could get up a few times. Fast forward to 16 months and I was still rocking a 2stone toddler for 30+ mins at a time, as he stopped BF back to sleep in the night, despite me still trying to get him back to sleep this way on every wake up. Got to be a bit of a nightmare tbh and my back and arms killed!

I gradually increased the time between feeds by 15 minutes every 3 days. So initially he was a horrendous sleeper and waking every 1 and a half hours. So I would only feed him after 1hr45. Then 2hrs. Then 2hrs15mins etc. in addition I gradually reduced the support I gave him to go to sleep every 3 days. From holding and rocking (facing away) to just holding, to holding hands etc. it took a while but was effective.