has anyone gone cold turkey on night feeds and how did it go?

[pyjamalover]

my 7.5 mo is not a great sleeper but not dreadful either. He has continued to wake for night feeds, it was down to 1, now back up to 2. He is BF and on 3 good meals a day, good weight, developing well and I really want him to stop waking for feeds. Tried to decrease number of minutes I BF for which started well then seemed to upset him having a small feed so gave up.

Am considering stopping the feeds cold turkey, anticipating a few dreadful nights.

Has anyone done it and did it work? How quickly?

Took a couple of nights, although DS was well over a year old. I slept downstairs and DH would offer him water, which DS refused. It was really good having DH do it, as I knew DS was safe and still getting comfort. If I'd been doing it I certainly would have caved!

I did it this time last year at the same stage as you with almose identical circumstances- good weight, development fine and good eater in the day. Went cold turkey after 7pm feed until morning. It took him took a couple of nights to settle properly and felt i had done him a favour by the time the week was out. Not nearly as many tears as you would think- bit of controlled crying but nothing traumatic. He's 18 months now and I am currently chickening out of dropping the bedtime breastfeed- so you can keep that one up for a while longer yet!!!
Good luck you wont regret it.

thanks, after psyching ourselves up for a dreadful night he slept through for the first time! as if he knew! that's it now, no more night feeds.

lets see how tonight goes...

Might be a bit late but we did this when DD was 5 months old. Writing that, it sounds really early, but she was sleeping/settling well night and day and gaining weight well - jumped from 50th centile at birth to between 75th and 91st from week 1. So I felt she wasn't going to suffer.

After two or three nights, when she woke up two or three times and was soothed back to sleep by DH (no boobies!) she was fine. Had she woken up not long after we'd settled her, I would of course have fed her, but she never did.

At 1.11, having a whole other raft of sleep issues, but at that time it was bliss.

I stopped feeding my DD overnight at about 7 months, and soothed her overnight with a dummy instead. She doesn't expect feeding overnight now (she's 8.5 months) but she still wakes! She's slept through precisely only 4 times. I persevere with not feeding her overnight in the hope that soon she will stop waking. Settling her without feeding is sometimes really quick, and sometimes takes ages, using the dummy and holding her hand.

well I've dropped the feeds without much drama at all, but he often still wakes, either in the late evening or 4.30 in the morning and needs cuddling and soothing. Still, we're only 8 nights in and he has now gone 8 nights with no feeds from 7-7. I hope he will eventually stop waking once he realises there's no milk at night, but now worried that like TheresAHuppoInMyHouse there might be more to this!