I am naive to think my dd will give up night feed of her own accord??

[sjcmum]

What age did your LO's stop feeding in the night? Did they give up of there own accord or is it time for me to be a bit strict?

My dd is 9 months, and still has a breastfeed once a night.... when she wakes, I try to soothe her a bit - but give in pretty quickly when she starts crying. She'll then feed for about 20-25mins and settle straight back to sleep with no fuss at all. It seems like the least stressful way to get her back to sleep and I keep thinking that when she doesn't need the milk she will just learn to sleep through.... but is that really likely? have I got her into the habit of a night feed? About 5 times in the last 3 months she has slept a full 12 hours, so I do know she can do it... and she is growing fast, so it isn't if she is short of food.

Would be interested to hear advice from others on when you stopped the nightfeeds and how you did it....

Sorry not any help from me.My bf babes all fed through the night (3 or 4 times a night) till they were 3,22 months and still bfing lo who is 9 months.

I co sleep and quite like bfing so it was an easy thing for me to just continue till they wanted to stop.

Good luck and hope someone better than me comes along to help you

I'm stopping night feeds at the minute, ten minutes extra per night. There was no chance of DD stopping of her own accord!

I like bfing too - and getting up in the night doesn't actually bother me much either - it just seems that a lot of people around me think I am mad to still be going and not to be strict and think I'm getting her into bad habits etc. Seems like I'm the only one who doesn't mind.....

...but then again - I suppose a full night's sleep would be quite nice....

SJCmum - we are up to 3:15 am before her first feed after 10 now, in just over a week and she only has two feeds in the night now, not four. She is feeling much more alert in the daytime and not as grouchy. Also she's eating more solids in the day which is good. It also helps if you ever want another one if you get three uninterrupted hours!

Dd did stop of her own accord, by 15 months she was just having a morning feed but I can't remember when she stopped her night feed,sorry.

i stopped night bf with ds at 10m by offering a bottle of water and dd at 11m just with a cuddle instead. must have been a good time for them cos they both then slept thru no problem.
both times i kept bfing during day, just felt that they (and i) were ready to sleep thru.
I think whatever you decide, you need to be consistent so she knows what to expect iykwim.
good luck with whatever you choose to do.

I stopped the night feeds when I knew it was habit and for comfort not for food which was around 13 months. I'm afraid we did 'uncontrolled' crying which, fortunately, lasted only a couple of nights, as I knew he'd just expect milk if I went into him and if DH went in, DS would just cry for me! It did work, but it was horrid while it lasted. (Still doing one evening feed now at 18 months so we're cutting back very slowly )

ditto pigeonpie - i did cc though at 8mths as he was waking every 2 hrs for a suck . it was hard but it worked!

Mine just stopped of their own accord when they were about 6 or 7 months.

Thanks everyone - good to hear. Think I might wait a bit longer to see what she does .... if only because I want my dh to help out if we do decide to do cc or something - which means it really has to be a weekend.... and we have too many busy weekends in the near future. Having said that, dh very rarely wakes up at the moment when she does anyway... seems to have an amazing ability to sleep through her crying!!!

Your dc sounds very similar to my dd who is a similar age and doing a similar thing. I cant see the cc through so going with the she will stop when ready idea.

There are lots of us her with 9 month old children who still seem to be waking. My own view is that this is the age they become a bit complex in their thinking and realise a cry = milk, whereas before they were just crying because of the physical pain of hunger.

We have cuddled the last two nights, but I am not sure it will work as he loves cuddles and will probably still wake for the cuddle .

Good luck, whatever you try.

DS gave them up of his own accord around 9 months, then picked them up again around 23 months . That time round the tactic we followed (after advice on MN) was that DH had to handle him and try to settle him while pointing out that Mummy was asleep [in fact, lying there desperately trying to look asleep] and this was the time for sleeping not for feeding. It was three or four days of gradually decreasing amount of objection from DS before he started sleeping through again. That explaining only really works with an older child, though, but the "have DH settle him/her" has more general application if you ever really want to stop night feeds.

sjcmum, once a night sounds good to me!! some nights, i'm feeding 2+. as crayon, im trying the cuddling as bring her in to our bed and it works initially when dd wakes,... when she starts resisting the cuddles, i know she really wants a feed. am excl bfing as dd refuses bottles apart from very rare occasions. she seems to be ravenously hungry some nights then just sucking for comfort others.

sjcmum, am in EXACTLY the same position. Keep telling myself if could be worse, but will read this thread when I have more time (it's bedtime for me now).

Haven't read the thread, but I just fed ds when he woke up, and he stopped waking up at about 11 months. He sleeps til about 6 now.

SJC - I was like you - happy to do one bf a night and liked the special cuddle with my little girl. But when she got to 6m she decided she would like to have it much more often and started waking at least 3 times a night. This went on for over a month so I felt we had to do something about it for her sake as well as ours.

If you're happy with one bf a night then I would carry on. Why not Reward yourself with an extra cake!