night weaning and sleep

[Clairea82]

Hi

I just wondered if anyone has experience of this...

I am looking to stop bf as my little girl isn't interested in it now, other than at night. She typically wakes twice (although a lot more if teething!) and both times needs bf to settle her back to sleep.

I want to stop bf but am terrified she won't go back to sleep if she wakes in the night! HV says I shouldn't be feeding at night but she doesn't have a huge appetite in the day so I'm concerned she is actually hungry. I can offer a bottle instead but she has never fallen asleep on/after a bottle....

Wondered if any other mums have been here and what happened when you did eventually stop bf?

Thanks xx

Meant to say...she is 11 months

I didn't stop bfing but I did night wean DD1 at about 9.5 months. It was an absolute disaster. She didn't know how to go to sleep any other way (despite settling for the night without being fed to sleep happily), and she forgot how to feed back to sleep, so even when I cracked and offered her a feed in the night she still couldn't go to sleep. We were up 5 times, once for at least 2 hours. After about six weeks we were on our knees and did sleep training.

DD2 I left to her own devices and she night weaned herself about 18 months. It was a lot eaiser all round.

This doesn't seem to be a common experience, lots of people say that their baby stopped bothering to wake once milk wasn't on offer. But no one warned me it could happen.

Didn't want to read and run! My dd is 7.5 months so unsure if this will be helpful or not. For various reasons I decided to stop night feeds about a month ago. I got hubbie to go to dd in the night for a whole week. He would offer her water from sippy cup, sit with her cuddling and rock her if she got drowsy/sleepy. There were tears but after a week it got a lot better. She still wakes some nights but now it is usually once instead of 3-4 times and is generally easier to settle (was finding with her having the feeds she got uncomfortable and wouldn't settle for 2hrs!!)
I also found that her appetite increased during the day once she stopped feeding at night :)