Night weaning

[HonniBee]

Can anyone help me with some advice on night weaning my 15 month old?

We've been doing well with my husband going in to offer water and settle him back down. This works very well until about 4am or 5am. After this he just can't seem to get back into a good sleep. Lots of tossing and turning until we give in sometime between 6am and 7am.

Last night I fed him and he went straight back to sleep until 7am no problem. Which leads me to believe he is actually hungry at this point.

Would I be able to give him the one feed at 4am without confusing him about when he can and can't have milk? Could we offer a small snack at that time instead?

It could be that milk is baby's comfort, which is just as necessary for baby to go to sleep as calories are.

Does baby have alternate comfort? Something like a comforter blanket or teddy for example.

Yes, he has a good attachment to a favourite teddy, and he uses a dummy at night. He also has his dad going in to offer water and comfort. He's pretty good at resettling the rest of the night, just struggles after 4am!

The problem with early mornings is that there is less pressure to sleep. If baby wakes at 4am his body has just had 9h (?) of sleep. While this isn't enough in total, it is still a large amount of sleep. So baby's body is less physically exhausted, having just woken from a significant rest.

This makes going back to sleep in the early morning that hardest time to get baby back to sleep. So super dooper extra help is often needed - hence a feed is about the only thing to cut it.

You're best way through this might be to look for ways of avoiding baby waking at all at this time. Rather than resettling if he does wake. But techniques for this mostly assume baby is sleeping though, just waking early.

It might be best just to muddle through until night weaning is established and baby no longer wakes in the night. Once sleeping through, then tackle early wake ups.

Once sleeping through, I'd shift daytime naps around to allow for a later bedtime. Much later initially. For example if you currently get 7pm-5am uninterputed sleep, shift this to 9pm-7am. But making bedtime later (and the necessary adjustments to daytime naps to allow that to happen) is not going to be effective if nights are disturbed anyway. That would just lead to baby getting more tired.

I think I may be going off on a tangent because I've just realised that wasn't what you were asking about.

Would I be able to give him the one feed at 4am without confusing him about when he can and can't have milk? Could we offer a small snack at that time instead?

Sorry, let's get back on track.

I'd start off with offering supper. Something like porridge at bedtime.

I would not offer food or get up at 4am. But many night weaning methods do suggest setting deadlines for feeds. So it would be ok to decide that yoy will feed at any wake up after 4am, for example. Then gradually make that time later.

Thanks, FATE.

Lots of food for thought!

@FATEdestiny

Could I be cheeky and ask a follow on question please?

Nights have improved tenfold- he now sleeps through with very little help from us. We hear him stir but 9 times out of 10 he gets himself back to sleep without us within seconds. Occasionally a bit of reassurance is all that's required. We persevered with the mornings (no milk or play!) and he now wakes between 5:30 and 6am. We put him in bed at 19:00 and he usually takes about 30 min to fall asleep by himself. We leave the room, he rolls around his cot, occasionally asks for water until he eventually drops off. I've tried moving bedtime a bit earlier and later but he still takes ages.

During the day he has one nap from about 11:30/12:00 until 1:30. He goes down for this very quickly, using a shortened version of bedtime.

My question is: is he getting enough sleep? It's about 10/11 hours at night, and 2 hours during the day. He's 15 months.

That's not an unreasonable amount of sleep but is on the low side.

I would want lunchtime nap to be at least 2h, in the 2-3h range. Are you giving dinner before the nap? I would give a midmorning (9.30 ish) milk drink and snack then an 11am dinner.

Yes, he has a snack at 9/9:30 and then lunch at 11am.

I'd say nap is more like 1.5/2 hours.

What would you try to get him more sleep?

Does he need more sleep?

12/13h would be enough sleep for some babies, but not all. Maybe it's enough for yours? Does he actually seem tired and grumpy or is he happy and fine?

If you do think he needs more sleep, when in the day and for how long does he seem tired, and would you describe this as "ready for bed" type tired or "exhausted and over tired"?

He seems a bit grumpy, but his teeth are bothering him at the moment, so could just be that.

He is usually tired around 9am but a cuddle and a snack at that point cheer him up and he's then okay until 11am.

He gets grizzly again in the afternoon at about 4:30- just before he has his tea at 5pm.