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?

I generally feed around the same in the day, but my son's always been on the larger size so I think he just needs more anyway :)

Dreamy, every baby is different I suppose as my son has never done this regardless of how much he's been fed!

My first was 6 months old and second 7 months at night weening and both ebf. And both a mix of spoon and baby led weening but both drank plenty of breastmilk during the day.
All baby’s are different. Neither of mine were difficult to get off the boobs at night. I only hung on longer with my second because we were going away and thought it would be easier to do it after, sharing a room etc.

Give it go and see if they can drop it.

Yeah

Well the second i had enough of her waking me up for the boob as we were co sleeping. Put her in her own room and let her twist for a few nights then she started sleeping through

That's quite a few months off and he'll change a lot in that time. You might find that he drops night feeds of his own accord as he eats more solids. A lot of babies "reverse cycle" when their Mum returns to work and cluster feed when she's around.

DS was 10 months. DH cuddled him to sleep and we gradually made the time of night he started doing that earlier.

Helped by the fact that from that age DS was in his own double bed as he could climb out of his cot and we didn't see the point in replacing our spare double with a single for a child.

Mine is 14 months and still feeds at night but less often. My husband can settle her now. We cosleep to all get more sleep, would recommend. 6 months is too young to night wean breast fed baby. I went back to work at 10.5 months and baby has managed fine, we introduce cups at 6 months, shed never take a bottle. Dont force puree down in the hope it stops night wakes, BLW is much better for developing a good relationship with food where they learn to follow their hunger cues. Night weaning is zero guaranteee of less wakes and then you’ve lost a great tool for resetting!

With both of mine I just waited it out and once they were eating solids well the night feeds decreased. At 6 months it's still really normal for your baby to be hungry overnight, so unless you're replacing BF with a bottle it's probably still needed.

Could you pump a bottle for your partner to give overnight? Appreciate that isn't always a totally straightforward solution but if it's something you can do it would give you at least one longer stretch of sleep.

I fed mine at night when they woke until they were 14 months old, this coincided with them starting to walk, so they were more tired and slept better.

@PockerMaus It’s also an issue that’s more pronounced due to later weaning. Only 3 decades ago we weaned at 6 months and had started before that usually with food tasters. Babies were more satisfied and slept better. I understand why weaning is delayed now but like lots of new advice, it doesn’t suit all babies.

I mixed fed my first (though 80% BF) and dropped to one feed a night whilst BF, but only night weaned fully on a bottle at 4 months. However, I was EBF when my second night weaned herself earlier than I planned at about 3 months. I had someone else offering her a bottle at night instead of the boob and she didn't want it essentially (she did not like bottles). Overall, I think if you are EBF the other parent needs to do the settling as otherwise its too hard. In both cases though you drop the feeds gradually though - make sure the feed before bed is a really big one, then some people find a dream feed works well and others (including myself) find its better to not wake a sleeping baby. You try to get them used to being woken for the feed instead of them having to wake themselves and then extend the gaps between feeds until one of the feeds drops away. Maybe ask ChatGPT for a plan to do that over a month.

Also, my kids were 50-75th centile and very active/require lots of calories if you look at home much they now eat vs other toddlers - and yet they were still both night weaned by 4 months and with me not being a great breastfeeder (both had tongue tie and even post snip they were slow). I'd say its pretty clear form how healthy mine are that they did not struggle for a lack of sustenance when I night weaned.

Mine was 3 1/2, I was pushed to go cold turkey and would not recommend unless it's really what you want.

For wider context my DS began solids around 8 months (I began trying around 6 months). He pretty much always refused a bottle and would rarely have a cup however at 11 months I went back to work 4 days a week and after a year enjoyed nights away with friends. I found when I was absent breastfeeding was out of sight out of mind and he coped amazingly. It was also essential for me to know I could live/work whilst still providing all the comfort etc he needed.

As others have said your in the trenches right now but it gets better I found co-sleeping and just continuing to live your life within the boundaries your comfortable with made everything manageable. Appreciate my experience is different to a lot of others on this thread but i successfully got a promotion, went to several friends weddings and had lots of lovely date nights with DH while breastfeeding.

I didn't even consider night weaning untill my baby's where on 3 solid meals a day, this was closer to 12 months. You baby hasn't even started solid foods yet so why are you considering night weaning? They still need to feed over night.

Probably worded it wrong, not looking to night wean fully just from BF as some nights I won't be home once I go back to work so trying to make sure my son will be able to take a bottle of milk and go back to sleep instead of being BF to sleep which he has been doing so for the last 6 months :)