Can you nightwean when they just wake up if not fed?

[BertieBotts]

Just curious. I am basically just resigned to the fact I will be feeding at night until such point as he stops waking up for it in the first place, but he's 21 months and I reckon we could night wean - in terms of he defo doesn't need the milk overnight, and sometimes he stirs but puts himself back to sleep, so he probably doesn't really need the comfort/reassurance either. We currently cosleep half the night but he starts out in his cotbed, which has a gap designed for him to be able to get out by himself (German style). He sleeps 3-5 hours at a stretch unless he's windy or teething and then it's 1 hour.

However any time we've ever tried to settle him any other way, doesn't matter if it's me or DH doing the settling, he will become more and more awake until he just sits up and points at the door and declares "Der" (there; I want to go in there). Obviously you can refuse to let him out/explain it's bedtime, but it doesn't matter, once we get to "Der" he's now completely and utterly awake and will either cry or get down and play.

He occasionally gets sleepy when being cuddled/held or having his head stroked lying next to you, but he needs to be very tired for this to work, and not overtired, and we've never managed to get him to this state in his cot. Only on the sofa (usually watching TV) or in our bed. Sometimes when he's come into bed with me and is feeding for a long time, I can tell him "All done now, night night" and roll over and I can tell he's awake but he just lies there and falls asleep by himself.

When he was newborn he'd happily go into his carrycot and put himself to sleep, and when he was a little bit older DH could rock and sing him to sleep, but since probably 6/7 months, only "mimi" (milk) will do. I rarely go out but when I do, he doesn't go back to sleep when DH tries to comfort him. He becomes distressed searching for milk in a half-asleep state and then wakes up and is confused/sleepy but not enough to actually go back to sleep.

Any ideas? If the answer is just wait it out then I will just wait it out, but I'm curious as to whether any techniques actually deal with this situation and how it would work.

You definitely can.

It's just habit and habits can be broken, but I think it would mean a few sleepless nights for everyone.

Have you tried giving him water or even milk in a bottle/cup when he wakes?

Or putting him in a bed he can't get out of?

We could put the bars back into the cot but I don't like the idea of leaving him crying. I don't think he would lie down and go to sleep, so it just feels cruel.

If you give him anything to drink he just rejects it. It's not really the drink he wants, it's the comfort/closeness.

You could stay with him and shush/pat, you wouldn't need to leave him crying, but you would have to make the decision that there's no more milk at night and then absolutely stick to it even if he does cry/not go back to sleep.

As with all sleep training it's the short term loss vs the long term gains. Only you know if it's worth it for you.

Personally, I think being woken every 3-5 hours for almost two years is complete madness, but maybe you're better at dealing with lack of sleep than me!

I like the sound of your cot bed. What do I Google search to see what it looks like?

(Sorry, not really relevant to your question.)

Haha no idea, I'll have a look.

If you stay and shh pat are they supposed to be lying down or clambering all over the place crying? That's what happened whenever we have tried this.

I don't love my sleep being interrupted but I don't find it a massive deal either. I know he will eventually sleep through and I don't think it's that far off (hopefully!!)

They are called "Schlupfsprossen" in German. Here's a picture of his cot.

You'd have to keep lying him down and telling him 'shh, it's sleepy time now' until he gave up and lie down and then you could move to the shh/patting.

He has to get the idea that the only thing available to him is shh/patting. No milk. No getting out. No being picked up. No playing. It's bedtime. You're there for him and with him, but he needs to lie down and go to sleep.

Tbh though if you're not that fussed and you think he will sleep through soon then I'd leave it.

By soon I mean in a few months and that's just wishful thinking really. If it could be sorted sooner then I definitely wouldn't be averse as I'm so lacking in energy at the moment. But I go through phases of thinking it's fine, then no it's not fine. It's not really like I get woken up loads, as I put him down at 7ish, then he wakes up 10-11ish when I will either get him back down in his cot and go to bed, or if he doesn't go back down I'll take him to bed. Occasionally he sleeps right through this time point. Then most nights he sleeps fine in the bed as long as he has one body part in contact with me. Some nights it's shit and he's crawling over me constantly, sleeping on my head, kicking me off the pillow etc. If he has gone back down in his cot, he'll wake anywhere from 2am-4am and I'll generally bring him in then, because either I'm too tired to think about anything else, or I try to put him down and he just wakes up again. I've found from experience if I persevere with feeding and putting down (to get him used to spending the whole night in his room for example) then generally he will be in a lighter and lighter sleep with every attempt to put down and then he just gets up for the day.

I was just wondering. I think I can see the technique of just keep lying him down working for bedtime, especially if it was DH doing it rather than me, but I also think he would get angry and fight being laid down. We do have some calm toys in his bedroom, so possibly I could get DH to try and just sit in there with him until he gets sleepy. But we seem to have switched to bedtime, when I was originally wondering about overnight!

My advice was for overnight waking, not bedtime.

But the key with any kind of sleep training is consistency so you would use the same method for bedtime and night wakings anyway. Just bedtime would have a preceding routine of bath/milk/story etc.

You absolutely don't have to have night weaning meaning endless crying or being a swift process or one that they're forced into.

We read 'Loving comfort- a toddler weaning story' a lot in preparation

Counted down to end of feeds and this got sooner and sooner (and less and less sleepy). Offered cuddles first and sometimes that was acceptable but I didn't try too hard or too long if it was obviously not going to work.

We talked about the boy in the book and explained that mummy was getting tired with milkie over night so could we just cuddle. (DH going in just resulted in a shitfit and nobody being asleep). When feeds were getting shorter and he was accepting cuddles more readily most nights we went for it, having talked about it in the day. He woke and asked for milk but accepted cuddles without upset. After 3 nights he stopped asking all together.

His sleep did improve a lot after that it must be said

He's not perfect mind you

And yes, I still bedshare when needed

And no I never let him cry or did any of this shhh pat stuff. Nor did I put him back into a cot (My back couldn't deal with 12+kg down to the bottom). He's virtually never got out of bed in the night.

Cuddles and closeness were still fine. Just not milk any more

We also introduced a water bottle at bedtime which he does like. He very occasionally gets it for himself at night (or asks us to)

We night weaned by having me sleep on the sofa for 3 nights, DH still offered comfort and cuddles, but my milk wasn't available. Worked fine, with minimal upset.

Ah right - yes, so, if we try anything like that in the middle of the night, he just gets more and more upset and sits up, asks to be picked up etc, until he is completely awake (whether you pick him up or not the waking up happens). Then he might calm down, but is very definitely awake - nowhere in the realms of sleep, so not especially helpful for changing sleep habits. Once you start talking to him or trying to explain things to him, it's like his brain switches on and he wants to be up then. Whereas when he wakes looking for milk he's not really there - he's still asleep. His body movements and vocalisation are almost newborn-like, except he'll clearly say "Mimi".

I think having DH just sit there and wait for him to tire himself out might actually work for bedtime, but I don't see it working for the middle of the night. DH being willing to sit there for a couple of hours while we do this is another story...

Thanks Harrys, I actually started something a bit like that - I started using the phrase "All done, night night mimi" whenever a feed was finished with the intention to transfer this over to night time and somehow transition to ending night/bedtime feeds earlier and earlier, and then he went through a bad teething phase and was difficult to get to sleep at all so I stopped. However it does work in the middle of the night when he wants to have a milk marathon, and I don't. I will try and persevere with that if it does seem to work :) I'm not sure he would follow a book yet, but you never know, he does seem to take all kinds of things in. How old was your LO when you did this?

Argh I swear it wasn't this hard with my first but I never put him in a cot at all! He went straight from my bed to his own single which I just snuggled in with him so I could do the rolling away thing. However he then was a nightmare to put to sleep once he stopped feeding to sleep so maybe I should be glad it works for now :o Bloody cots, I knew I didn't like them!

DS2 does weigh over 12 kilos as well, so not only is it a mission to lower him in and out of a giant cotbed it's also killing my back to heft him over me to swap sides if he's being a pain in the middle of the night. Most of the time this isn't needed, but we do seem to have the occasional night (usually down to a brewing poo or tooth) where he seems to want the all night buffet.

21 mo but we'd probably been reading the book for a couple of months. He wasn't exactly chuffed about it but there was little to no real upset

And i didn't ever heft to switch sides, just sort of wiggled myself to direct the other boob!

Yep he's in a standard single now. The nightmare to put to bed kind of stopped once he stopped napping- although it can take a while, he's mostly chatting to himself then rolling about and it's taking less and less input and he's now (grudgingly) allowing DH and I to alternate bedtimes

I'm now convinced he sleeps better on the nights when DH puts him to bed!

But it wouldn't have worked if we'd just announced it in the middle of the night- it had to be prepared for and talked about when awake and compared to the big boy in the book etc!