Night weaning distractable nurser?

[GraceSilvan]

DD is breastfed and on solids since 5 months. We sleep trained at 6 months but didn’t night wean at the same time because she was only waking once and it was very hot here (Spain) so I was worried she might need the feed for extra fluids.
Now she is just over 7 months old, on three solid meals a day but she’s back to two night wakings, which are at different times every night. I’m pretty sure that one of them, usually the second, is not a hunger waking because she doesn’t go right back to sleep afterwards and shes not hungry when she wakes for the day. Last night for example, she was asleep by 8:30, woke for a long feed at 2:00 (although I didn’t feed until 2:30) and woke again at 6:30. I fed her but she didn’t go back to sleep until about 7:15. When she woke again at 8:30 she wasn't hungry and when she finally did nurse at around 9:15 it was only a very quick feed. So, as she’s getting two feeds at night when she wakes for the day she is not having a good feed.
She’s quite distractable when feeding during the day so I take her into her or my room to feed but she still only has a quick nurse (between 2 and 5 minutes) and then starts looking around the room.
The last feed of the day is often difficult too. She doesn’t feed as much as I think she should (only about 5 minutes on and off breast) and I'm not sure if that’s due to not being hungry enough (about 2-2.5 hours after dinner) or being too tired (we're in the middle of the 3-2 naps transition).
So, I believe that she could go all night without any feeds if only she would have a good long feed before bed and better feeds throughout the day but I don’t know if it’s better to first try to drop one feed (and which one?) or to try to drop them both. And how to go about it? Has anyone successfully reduced the time spent feeding a little each night to gradually eliminate a breastfeed? Won’t she cry if I put her down before she’s finished? If she’s going to cry I might as well go cold turkey and then she’ll cry less over fewer nights, no?
Does anyone have any similar experiences or suggestions?

Yes... I found expressing and feeding bottles helped during the day and then would breastfeed if woke up in the night.

Baby would glug the bottles down fairly fast so less opportunity to get distracted. If baby wouldn’t take bottle, we would go out for walk to refocus and that generally worked

And I started to lengthen the feeds at night, but I think baby did seem ready too and his cries were not as urgent. I started to ignore his wake ups where he’d cry a bit, but didn’t seem urgent and he’d go back to sleep. He’s been sleeping through most nights for the last two weeks 🤞🏼He has woken at 6 for a feed a couple of times tho

I think bottles have helped as can feed him 8 oz bottles at night and an 8 oz before bed topped up by breast so he’s not hungry. Whereas with breasts they tend to snack a bit more

Oh if only! She doesn't take bottles. I've been trying since she was four months old and she won't take more than an ounce or two.

I persevered with my boy and went back to work and eventually he did. But yeah that’s a pain. If she takes an ounce though you may be able to train her

I personally would wait until at least a year to night wean.

why @crazycatlady5. They don’t need milk at night after 6 months. it’s learnt behaviour which you can help unlearn.

Another thing I do if you can’t get baby on bottles is try giving baby something to play with. Sometimes my baby is distracted even on bottles and he likes playing with a rattle when drinking milk. Try different things- quiet room, no distractions, taking baby for walk, giving baby something to fiddle/play with etc

I think my friend went in and offered water and baby soon stopped waking up for night feeds

I just don’t agree @rubyroot. I believe some babies naturally stop waking in the night for milk but if they’re still naturally waking st 6 months for milk they need it.

@crazycatlady5 I agree. My DD is 8 months and still wakes for night feeds, I don't think it's fair to night wean. They're still so small. Even as an adult I wake up hungry/thirsty through the night.

Erm.. I wasn't really asking whether or not to night wean, I was asking for people's experiences with and suggestions for night weaning (or dropping a feed of) a baby like mine that doesn't feed very well during the day and then makes up for it at night, as I am certain that she doesn't need at least one of her night feeds because she isn't hungry when she wakes up for the day and she feeds quite little before bed.

@rubyroot, was your friend's baby who was weaned with water breastfed??

Yes he was breastfed.

I know someone else who went cold turkey though, perhaps not recommended, but that was their choice. Think it was a couple of weeks of horrendous nights and they weaned in the end.

I also know of someone who waited a bit later each time their baby woke and also reduced the time on the breast each time so it was more gradual.

Ok, thanks all for commenting.
Last night at 2:25am I waited 20 minutes before feeding her (she wasn't crying, just fussing) and only offered one side and she was fine with that. Then she woke again at 6:30 but didn't go back to sleep after feeding on one side until about 7:45! (again, no crying).

So I'm going to try delaying the first feed a little bit more every night and continue offering only one side and see how that goes. Perhaps I can reduce to just one feed at about 4 or 5am that way. I really need the sleep and so does DD!!

My DS at about 7 months naturally dropped to one feed at about 4-5am when previously it was all over the place

Does she always go to bed about 8.30? If so I’d say when she’s wakes about 6.30 that’s all your night time sleep there as that’s a good 10 hours. So then one feed over night is pretty normal for for a 6 month old.