How did you night wean?

[Lizbiz89]

My ds is going to be 12 months in 3 weeks and I am really keen to start dropping the night feeds. He can feed anywhere from 2-5 times a night still and it's becoming mentally and physically exhausting. Just wondering how people went about it? Did they naturally stop or did they have to intervene?

I’ve recently done this - but at 22 months. For me it was important to be able to explain so DS understood.

one night he woke up and asked for it I had to say it was finished. And he cried and was grumpy for an hour.
but it passed. He fell back asleep.
tried it again in the morning and I said it was finished. Another little cry.

then from then on, didn’t ask, we had to find new ways of getting to sleep (very hard but getting there).
I never thought it would be this easy - because he is heavy reliant on feeding to sleep. But I’m pregnant and here’s no milk left! So it was all for comfort and habit.

don’t be too hard on yourself, it is SO hard. ♥️

Yeah it's so hard. He's my 3rd child but 1st ebf baby so I've never been in this position before. Having to look after my older 2, I really can't cope with the lack of sleep anymore. I'm finding it too draining. I'd be happy to give him one feed a night but not the amount he currently has. He eats and drinks plenty in the day so I don't think he needs it now either. I've been doing gentle sleep training so he isn't fed to sleep now at bedtime. Just wants it in the night instead.

I night weaned at 16 months old. DD was pretty reliant on feed to sleep for quite a long time, but we used a bit of sleep training to introduce other methods at some point, although I still fed to sleep some nights. At 14 month she slept through herself for the first time. By 16 months she had slept through a handful more times so I thought she doesn't really need milk at night anymore. I stopped night feeds and if she woke I shh-patted or used other method to comfort. Was quick and easy, and in a week was sleeping through reliably. (Although cue next issue of waking up at half 4 / 5 am for months 😂)

In retrospect I'm glad I waited until she was ready to wean. However, if you are struggling with wakes I'd say that's a good reason to force it a bit more.

At 12 months it’s probably more of a habit than that he needs the night feeds. My DC was only 6 months when I night weaned as that’s when I stopped breastfeeding, but I found that cutting the feed down by a minute each side, every couple of nights or so worked very quickly. I think I got down to around 3 mins per side and then they just stopped waking all together.

I found with my 3 the easiest way to get them to drop night feeds was to send DH to them when they woke. Was a few tricky nights of them waking and taking time to settle back down but after that they stopped waking for it. I wasn't dropping day feeds so would still feed at bed time but once they were asleep until about 6:30 any waking was a DH issue to deal with.

Was a bit older than one year. I went in with sippy cup of water. When he cried I gave some water to each of his teddies and gave them a cuddle. Then he wanted some and I gave him a cuddle too. Took a few nights of going in like this. Some longer cuddles and reassurance than others. After that he was fine.

I think acting it out with teddies helps younger children who don't have the language yet. But use simple language like "milks all done. You can have water instead. Teddy loves a drink of water too."