Breast fed babies - how did you wean night feeds?

[PockerMaus]

My son is nearly 6 months old. He is currently EBF but we are planning to start introducing solids over the next few weeks.

He normally sleeps between 7:30pm to around 6/7am with a minimum of 2 wake ups but generally more. He will scream when he wakes up and the only way to stop him screaming is nursing him back to sleep. My partner has tried rocking him etc but he just seems to never fully resettle and the screaming can be excruciating so I always end up feeding him.

It's hard because 1) I then have to deal with all the wake ups, my partner feels like he's useless and 2) wowee I am knackered and often don't think my son is actually nursing for hunger, just comfort.

Just wondering how others dealt with this situation? Did your baby just eventually stop needing to nurse overnight or did you try other methods?

They say babies can go through the night without a feed from 6 months old. Although I always felt with my first child that they still needed that feed, it was only at 10/11months that I felt it was a habit waking up rather than to feed so I stopped then.

my second child is currently 6 months and still waking twice for a feed, which I have no interest in stopping at the moment.

i felt I knew when it was comfort over hunger. Also I suppose I was off work on mat leave and felt that was one of the reasons I was off! (And still am for second child)

I let mine wean more or less naturally.
DS1 was 20 months and I pushed it little as I was pg and hadn't heard of tandem feeding.
DS2 was 3.

The way it see it, I don't sleep through the night without waking for a drink,so why would a baby.

My DD is 21 months and still feeds at night and always has. At least twice. I started to wean her off and she developed a head to toe rash. I was advised to keep bf-ing until we see the allergy specialist. Even that aside, I am very glad that we continued. When were were weaning she went from being very content to seriously unsettled.

My friend said they went away for a couple of nights and left husband with kids (think it was a wedding or hen do) and their kid was surprisingly unbothered. They then took this as an opportunity to stop night feeds.

Personally, I think the best way is to do it slowly. It's amazing how much of an impact it has on your body, as well as for the baby. I was not prepared for the sudden hormone shift.

Others may have better advice but that has been my experience. Breast feeding at night was starting to get annoying but the alternative was worse. Now I am very glad I didn't stop. We co-sleep so that makes all the difference, I am practically asleep whilst dd is feeding. I have no idea how it would work if baby is in a cot. It must be exhausting to keep getting out of bed.

When you say you stopped, what did you do when your child woke up in the night instead? I can't seem to find another way to get him back to sleep but maybe he is still hungry and this will eventually fade so he'll be easier to get back to sleep, who knows!

True with regards to mat leave. I'm due back to work soon and I work night shifts so ideally need to sort this by next April so my partner is able to settle our son on his own without a boob 😂

Wow 3! Did you ever have a night away from your baby in that time? I'm not sure I could mentally cope with not having a full night's sleep until then, but hey I guess I've already done 6 months so maybe this is just the norm for now 😂

Hi, we weaned both of our children off night feeds at 12 months . My husband would go in and offer them water when they woke in the night. They didn't like it. But after 10 minutes of crying with settling and shushing they would go back to sleep.
Those 10 minutes were awful for me to hear but I'm so glad I didn't go in to take over. After three/ four nights, both just slept through, with only the occasional night wake up ( my husband went in then too for consistency).
After a few weeks, I could then go in and offer water too for the occasional night waking. They both solidly slept through with no more night wake ups from about 14 months.
I breast fed both until they were 2.5 but night feeds stopped at this 12 month mark. We chose 12 months because this is when I went back to work and this is when I'd read that developmentally babies were ready for eating solid food.

I would suggest really considering a game plan and then being consistent for a least 4 nights before changing anything. I also think they need to be eating a fair bit of solid food. We did baby led weaning and at 6 months mine were just tasting and playing with food so breast milk was still their main nutrition. Once they did a really solid poo at 11 months or so after really starting to up their solid food intake did I think they'd be ready.

But if you are choosing to spoon feed etc then I imagine this might be really different. I read lots of weaning and breast feeding books and tried to go into it open minded as prepared as I could. I think I was lucky it was a relatively smooth process. Good luck!

I night weaned my first son at around 8 months, but he was waking hourly and I was very unwell with tonsillitis and just could not get well again because j was so sleep deprived. So I was desperate!
I waited until I felt that he was getting a decent amount of calories from solids. I followed a sleep training approach (CALM, there’s a book on Amazon if you’re interested). Start with the first nap of the day and try to settle without feeding. Once you’ve managed that, move onto bedtime, and then the night wakes. Once we’d cracked bedtime I let my husband take over resettling the night wakes so feeding wasn’t an option. I think it took a couple of weeks for him to no longer wake in the night.
He now sleeps like an absolute angel (4 years old). My second son is a different matter!

No. Formula babies can get through the night at 6 months. Breastfed babies are night weaned closer to 12 months.

Dc1 self weaned unexpectedly at 10 months - turns out pretty much the same time I got pg dc2, I read something about milk taste changing? Bit of a drastic course of action though!

We went cold turkey at 6 months. Partner took over all night wakings with a bottle. The first feed took a while to settle her as she wasn't happy with the bottle but I stayed away and she eventually relented. After that first difficult feed she was fine. And not going to lie, it was pretty difficult

It is rather exhausting! I'm too scared to co sleep but I do find the night feeds quite difficult. I think BF is great during the day, so convenient and easy for me, but at night I start to resent it!

I know my son is still so very young I just worry about when I go back to work (I am a firefighter and I do two night shifts a week) how he will cope without me at night. Maybe he will be unbothered like your friends kids 🤔 who knows eh!

Interesting re the allergy! I wonder what has caused the rash 🤔

Interesting! How did you start with the first nap? How did you get them to settle instead?

Ha ha! I ended up having an EMCS with my son so think I need to wait a year plus, otherwise I'd think about it 😂

My breastfed babies dropped the night feeds themselves and slept a 6 hour stint such as 11-5 at 8 weeks and this extended to 12 hours and 12 weeks. I was extremely lucky.

I think you’d need to spoon feed and make sure he got plenty of food during the day if you’re going to night wean at 6 months. I did baby led weaning and my babies wouldn’t have been ready to night wean until 12 months. I co slept

Thank you for your response :)

Oh yes I bet that 10 minutes felt like forever! I think it will be the case I'll have to wait for a few months until he's more established with solids :) it makes sense! He'll be 10 months when I go back to work & do night shifts so hopefully we'll have a plan in place by then! 🤞🏼

Interesting! I've always intended to do blw but I go back to work when he'll be 10 months and I work night shifts so I'm a bit worried he will struggle without me!

Wow, yes I could only dream of this 😂 just goes to show that every baby is different!

My 23mo still feeds 1-2 times a night. Feeding her is by far the quickest way to get her back to sleep. We bedshare so it's very easy.
I have experienced the alternative, which is why I am happy to continue. My eldest child was bottle fed not by choice and he woke regularly until 2.5 years. Yes my husband could help, but whoever did it, it involved hours of walking, rocking and cuddling. I just cannot do with that little sleep I had to make do on back then any more with 2 to run about after and greater work pressures, so breast sleeping as La Leche League call it, works much better for me. My plan is that she'll be night weaned when she doesn't wake any more, I'm hoping like her brother somewhere from 2-3

Yes I've been debating trying to get my partner to try with a bottle again (my son never really took to one and would refuse so I gave up before). I despise pumping though! But if it solves my dilemma it would be worth it obviously

Did you notice a drop in number of night feeds?

Night shifts obviously does rather mean you don't have a choice. I imagine your partner will need to offer bottled milk when baby wakes and lots of cuddles, and it'll be a tough first few nights, but he'll get there.

Yes it is absolutely the quickest way isn't it! It's one of the reasons I do not want to swap to formula/bottle feed as we will lose the ability to do this 😂 but also when I go back to work and do night shifts I don't know how my son would cope on the odd night I'm not at home :(

I could have written this myself! No advice, just solidarity!

He won't know what's hit him after never having to do a night feed before 😂 but yes this may have to be the case! Just debating when we start implementing this