Dropping the last night feed! Please help!

[Serabi]

I'm wondering if anyone could please give me some tips!

My 15 month old spends 4 days in childcare and has Friday and weekends with me. On days she is with me I BF at 7am(ish) wake up, before her 1pm nap and again at bedtime. She also wakes up at approx 4.30am and I breastfeed back to sleep for this wake up.
On days she is with childcare she naps without the BF.

If she wakes up at any other time in the night DH can successfully settle her with water or a quick hand hold and she is back to sleep in a minute.
The 4.30ish wake up is proving really difficult now and I'm looking for tips and moral support to stop it. It's the only wake up of the night where she sits up and asks for milk. I fear if I stop this feed she will be awake properly and up for the day at 4.30 and then she may regress back to two/three daytime naps.

Has anyone had one last stubborn night feed and successfully got rid of it?

Still pretty young for full night weaning. I waited til 21 mo when DS had more language/ understanding but we never had fewer than 2 night feeds. Used 'Loving comfort' as bedtime story for a long time first.

I have wondered if it's too early?

If others join on the thread I'd love to hear when night feeds stopped. Either naturally or managed.

How long did you BF for @Harrysmummy246?

@Harrysmummy246 also how did you stop when you did?

I stopped bf at night at about 9 months, making an effort to do so - she would take a fair amount of comforting to go back to sleep, but started sleeping through the night about a month later. I think this was the right time for her though, because sometimes she would take a lot of settling even if I did feed her so it wasn’t even really helping.

This was also when I stopped bf altogether FYI.

I fed in the day til DS stopped that by himself at 18 mo

Kept going with night feeds as I could just lie and let him get on with it and I am vehemently anti anything that was allowing him to cry- the one time DH tried to settle him overnight instead, it was unbearable and I stopped it by 11ish

Soon after he stopped dayfeeds, we started reading 'Loving Comfort'

Every bloody day

For several months.

We talked about the little boy in the book

I started counting down/ delatching on night feeds initially and then always offered a cuddle/ pat/ drink of water first, which he sometimes took, sometimes didn't

Then we went for it. 3 nights. Minimal tears (i continued bedsharing and bedtime 'feed' at that point)

He gradually reduced his bedtime feed anyway without needing much encouragement and eventually I just didn't offer. He fussed for about 30 seconds then was more bothered about where his book was.

He was about 22 mo then

He has sleep better since then but it's by no means a guaranteed sleep through etcetc

Thanks @Harrysmummy246 lots of good tips.

Do you think babies need night feeds post 12 months for hunger or just comfort?

Either is a perfectly valid reason for a bf overnight, well into second year. And if it's the difference between your day starting at 4:30 or a reasonable hour, I'd keep it

@Harrysmummy246 I collapsed from exhaustion at work this week so my day starting at 4.30 (sometimes earlier she doesn't run like clockwork) isn't a long term option for me.

No, I agree it isn't. For anyone. But I don't think that trying to force weaning sounds like it's going to solve that
She is still very very young to not need a night feed

Hi, you might have very different views on parenting to me but I think we all make decisions based partly on our own values and in response to our children. For us, we night weaned at 7.5mo, for a while my bf DD has been taking v small amounts before falling back to sleep although still waking 2-4 times a night. I felt she didn't need the milk and it wasn't worth disturbing my sleep several times a night.

So, we planned to do controlled crying, it worked quickly and simply. The week before I started taking her off the boob as soon as she dropped off to sleep (previously I'd been encouraging her to take as much as possible in the vain hope she'd sleep longer) and put her back to bed. Then the 'big night', she woke, we timed 3 min then DH went in to shush pat for 2 min, we did another 5 min, 8 min and 10 min intervals. Throughout the 10 min interval it was clear she was settling again (not crying but rolling around a bit) and was asleep by the end. She didn't wake up again till morning. So it took less than 30 min in total.

The next 5 nights she woke once or twice for a few seconds but went back to sleep straight away. At that point I turned the volume on the monitor down and barring illness we've both slept through since. It's brought lots of benefits in terms of how available I am to her during awake time as I'm not sleep deprived!

I've known other parents have a tougher time with CC, especially if starting with a slightly older baby. But, it worked for us and didn't feel uncomfortable at all as I was confident DD was ready. I felt this was confirmed by how quickly she responded.

If you think your DC still needs milk overnight you could consider a dream feed. I do this sometimes if I've missed bedtime for any reason and works well 👍