Planning to night wean - please share your experiences and advice with me

[Dillybear]

Hello all! My DD is eight months old and I think we are both ready to night wean. I think she is ready because:

• her feeds are now 3-4 minutes long, and she is off and on during feeds quite a bit
• it used to feel like she was taking a lot of milk overnight but it doesn’t anymore. I have had issues with oversupply and if she woke late or missed a night feed, even until fairly recently, I would experience engorgement and have had mastitis more than once. Now, when she misses night feeds I don’t get any discomfort. However, I would still be uncomfortable if she missed a daytime feed
• her wake ups have become random, whereas before she woke at fairly predictable times for long feeds

I am ready to night wean because I am very tired, and I’m returning to work soon. I have a long commute on the motorway, and at the moment I wouldn’t be safe to travel to and from work. I also drive a lot for work - it isn’t unusual for me to drive 100 miles in a day.

DD has two naps a day, between 2.5-3.5 hours’ daytime sleep. She self settles to sleep happily most of the time. Sometimes needs a little extra comforting in the cot, but really only if she’s teething. After a night feed I put her back in the cot awake and she self settles back to sleep without any fuss, so she isn’t feeding to get back to sleep.

DH has booked a week off work, and we’re ready for a few hideous nights (hopefully followed by the best sleeps of our lives!). I would be so grateful if you could tell me what method you used to night wean, how long it took, and did it work? Please share all your wisdom, advice, and knowledge with me!

I night weaned my DC at around 7-9 months, can't remember exactly how old they were. I offered a bottle of water, which they weren't interested in. They slept much better within three or four nights, though we did continue to have regular wake ups due to other issues for another year or so. But their sleep did drastically improve and I would definitely recommend it. The key is being consistent, once you've decided to do it, stick to it.

It’s so interesting to read about the martyrdom of Mumsnet because that’s exactly what I take away from so many posts here. I was reading a thread on sleep training (both gentle and CC methods) and the number of people saying “when you choose to have a baby you forfeit your right to sleep” was crazy. People seem to competitively cosleep to the point of almost being boastful / proud of their child not having slept though the night until they were 6 but that’s ok because “the child comes first”

Mental health is soooo important and the health of the baby is too. Those shouldn’t be ignored in favour of some belief that you should do exactly what the baby wants all the time. It’s our job to help and support and nurture and love them but that does mean sometimes doing things for our own benefit.

Yes thank you @Dillybear, she’s doing really well now we have sleep under control. We feel like different people now!

I think my DS may have been a bit older but this worked for us:

When he woke in the night I would pick him up and bring him into our bed as usual, but NOT FEED HIM. Lots of cuddles until he settled, then back to his cot. There were a few tears to start with but after 2 or 3 nights he didn’t bother waking up anymore.

[quote Dillybear]@GrumpyHoonMain thanks for the insight, I hadn’t thought about that as a possibility. She doesn’t seem to be particularly bothered about where the milk comes from. She has a bottle of formula every day which she is just as happy with as breastfeeding. On the very rare occasion that I’m not around for a feed she will happily take a bottle of formula and doesn’t seem to change how she feeds after that happens. But of course, missing one feed isn’t the same as going to nursery and I am worried about how she’ll cope with being apart for the full day, so possibly that’ll change. If that happens, I would probably have to switch to formula (which would be fine with me) because the bottom line is I have to be safe to drive for work. She needs me to be in one piece more than she needs breast milk! At the moment her wake ups are at such unpredictable times, it’s really affecting my ability to relax and fall asleep, so even though I go to bed around 9pm I’m very often still awake when she first wakes up. I recognise that’s my fault, not hers. But unfortunately that’s how it is at the moment and something has to change before I go back to work.[/quote]
See the thing is as there’s more to breastfeeding than just the milk (comfort, boredom etc too) and she’ll be starting nursery too then be prepared for her start refusing the bottle entirely or worse needing more bottles from just you. I imagine either bottlefeeding or breastfeeding loads of times at night would be dangerous.

Are you able to soften your return to work for a month or two by working from home so you can night wean her / train her into 3-4 feeds in the morning/evenings?

@ScarMatty yes I’m really not counting on her sleeping through! I think I’m just hoping that the wake ups will at least reduce, and that maybe I can share some of the load overnight with my DH. I mean, obviously the dream is that she will sleep through, but I daren’t even hope for that!

@GrumpyHoonMain well this is exactly what I’m trying to do. We’ve got a few weeks til I start back, so I’m hoping to get these night feeds cut out before then. I wasn’t hoping to replace them with bottles otherwise that defeats the point - even more faff to get up and make a bottle. But if I needed to switch her to bottles in the day then I wouldn’t mind that now. I’m only really breastfeeding now because it’s what I know and it’s less washing up.

Really interesting discussion about ‘martyrdom’ and motherhood. It’s nice to know I’m not alone in wanting a balance between me and my DD.

I recently started a thread on how to night wean my 8 mo and everyone pretty much said she’s too young and I should carry on... indefinitely 🤣
Following this thread with interest for helpful tips and advice!

Awful night here, tried sending DH in to resettle & offer water from a cup. DD cried for nearly an hour until I gave in & fed her. Feel so deflated. Hate hearing my baby cry & I don’t want to give up bf in the day but I feel like a prisoner to it!!
Just needed a rant.
How are you getting on @Dillybear

I did it the other way round. I stopped the day time bf at a year old. Couldn’t give an alternative as ds has cmpa and wouldn’t take any of the other milks. I carried on bf at nighy until 2.9 years old. I stopped when he stopped going to sleep whilst feeding because that way i got maximum sleep.
There’s no guarantee night weaning leads to better sleep. Mine is just reliably sleeping through at 3.3 years.

I went cold turkey on night feeds for DD at around 8 months and used the cc technique. We had one bad night and she has slept through 90% of the time since then.

We are going to do similar with DS at 9 months (he eats fewer solids than DD did) but will probably taper down the duration of the feeds first as you are doing, OP, as it seems kinder.

@Stringervest @Seainasive @WomenAndVulvas @Sunnydaysstillhere @Ohalrightthen

Sorry to @ you all, but I was just wondering what you did when you were night weaning if your babies woke around 5am/5.30am? DD sometimes wakes for a feed around that time and then sometimes manages to get back to sleep, sometimes doesn’t. This morning she had a very quick feed at 5.30 but even though she was tired (crying, rubbing eyes, pulling ears) she couldn’t manage to go back to sleep afterwards, so an early start for us.

@June628 sometimes I see the responses on here and I think people are mad! Women come here desperate for support and get told (sometimes quite flippantly) to cosleep and that it won’t be forever. Of course I know that for some people that is a great solution - I have nothing against that and I’ve tried it myself but it doesn’t work for us and it’s not for everyone. I always think that when you’re at your wit’s end and you are basically told to just deal with it, you must be left feeling so guilty and deflated. I do think that if a baby needs night feeds then of course they should have them, but if the baby doesn’t need the calories overnight and it’s negatively affecting the mother then it’s absolutely fine to try and make a change! Especially when breastfeeding and all the night wakings fall to the mother. If milk isn’t an option then future wakings for teeth or illness etc can at least be shared with a partner.

Your night sounds so rough, I’m sorry. How was last night? We haven’t started just yet as we are waiting for DH’s week off. I want to be as prepared as possible and to have a strategy agreed so we can be really consistent, so just looking to mumsnet for some collective wisdom.

Having said that, she has had some nights where she’s woken up when she has only been fed a couple of hours ago, and I would have just fed her again before but as I’m trying to reduce the feeds I have settled her without feeding, although it can take a bit of time. For example, a couple of nights ago she woke and fed at 11.30 and then again at 2am. I decided not to feed her and it took until 3.30 for her to resettle. I guess it’s just not what she’s used to. But then she slept until 7.30. Then the night before last, she woke at 11.30 and although I fed her, for some mad reason she then cried for 2.5 hours. I tried everything I could think of but she just wasn’t settling. Whenever I picked her up she was very happy but wide awake. In the end I did some controlled crying and she went back to sleep at 2am and slept until nearly 8am. There have been a few nights now where she has only had one very quick feed, which makes me think she really doesn’t need the milk. I’m just saying this to illustrate that if she’s crying it doesn’t necessarily mean she’s hungry! She might just be really mad that something has changed! Does your DD settle to sleep by herself?

I should add, when I resettled her at 2am, although she wasn’t thrilled to not be fed, she then slept until 7.30, and woke up happy. So clearly she wasn’t starving!

Those early starts are tricky. I would try not to feed before 6am, but if they wake at 5.30, haven't had a feed since bedtime and seem hungry then of course I'd feed them. If they don't go back to sleep, they'll just need a super early morning nap.

It takes a while to adjust to the new routine!

@Dillybear completely agree! I felt quite disheartened after everyone told me they still fed a much older baby & co-sleeping absolutely doesn’t work for DD she hates being in bed with me. For now I’ve decided to carry on because I can’t deal with the crying & hope she drops the feed herself or I’ll work up the courage to try again at some point. It’s only one feed a night & I always thought she’d drop it herself & must be hungry if she’s waking up but who knows. She was quite determined for an hour and I didn’t see it ending any time soon before I gave on lol

@June628 I’m in just the same situation as you. I feel so torn about this last feed. So many ‘experts’ say at 12 months she can’t be hungry and I’m sure they’re right, but it feels counterintuitive to spend hours awake in the night listening to her cry when I could give her that one feed and we all go back to sleep. But then the lure of an actual whole night’s sleep is so strong too! Like you, for now I’m just hoping at some point she’ll drop the feed naturally and trying not to think about all my friends irl whose babies have been sleeping through for months (grrr).

Exactly the same here! Generally we still have one or two feeds at 13 months here. I have considered night weaning but tbh am a bit scared and like @TradedAtlanta worry that she will continue to wake anyway and it'll just take hours to settle her instead of 5 mins on the boob and back to sleep. How old are they generally when they naturally stop feeding in the night?!

@TradedAtlanta Exactly! I dream of a full night sleep but if the reality is hours being awake at night rather than a 10min feed I’m not sure it’s worth it for now. I think she’d just stay awake until the morning to be honest I just don’t see her going back to sleep. Sometimes she wakes at 5am & if I feed her she’ll sleep until 6:30. Guess I could just wake up at 5 & call it sleeping through 😂😂

@Chocolatealllllday I really don’t know. Some people seem to think it never happens until you night wean but I don’t want to believe that. Surely they stop by themselves at some point??

I think one quick feed sounds really manageable, especially if it’s around the same time each night. Here, it can be four wake ups or it can be one. It can be a really quick feed and back to sleep, or it can be two hours of hell. It’s just completely unpredictable and it makes me so anxious!

[quote June628]@TradedAtlanta Exactly! I dream of a full night sleep but if the reality is hours being awake at night rather than a 10min feed I’m not sure it’s worth it for now. I think she’d just stay awake until the morning to be honest I just don’t see her going back to sleep. Sometimes she wakes at 5am & if I feed her she’ll sleep until 6:30. Guess I could just wake up at 5 & call it sleeping through 😂😂[/quote]
Yes we’ve had the one feed at 5.30 or 5.45 a few times (several months ago now) when the mornings were really light and she didn’t go back down. I called it sleeping through (especially since DH got up with her and I went back to sleep ). @Dillybear I can really relate to the anxiety around sleep. We had a few nights several weeks ago when she didn’t go back to sleep for hours. For many nights afterwards I was so anxious after the feed I couldn’t sleep myself. In the end, DH had to take the monitor and go and sleep on the sofa with it so I could stop listening out and go to sleep. I hate that monitor with a passion! I’m always thinking of ways it could be designed so it only woke me up once she’d been making noises for 10 minutes! Surely there must be a market for that??

@TradedAtlanta oh my god I know what you mean! I can’t even ‘nap when the baby naps’ (🙄) during the day if I have to have the monitor with me. DD also sometimes does a single cry when she’s linking sleep cycles, and even though I keep the monitor on the lowest volume it always wakes me up. So even when she sleeps well often I don’t. Sometimes I think it would just be easier to leave our door open and turn the monitor off.

Last weekend DS slept until 2:45 without a feed. We decided this must mean he didn't need an earlier feed and had great success at settling him through the pre-midnight waking for a few days.

Well. It must have been a phase because he woke at 10:30 last night and he's awake now. I fed him after an hour last night because DH was starting to lose his sanity but we have resolved to be strong tonight.

He cannot need feeding now. He had both boobs four hours ago. He is 7.5 months old ffs

Aw @Stringervest, it’s so frustrating when something goes ‘backwards’. How did last night go? Were you able to settle him? If not, there is a school of though to pick the night feeds that cause the most disruption to your night’s sleep and wean from them, leaving in place the one before you go to bed as it doesn’t add to your sleep deprivation. I can’t say I tried this but I can see the argument - I just found it so much harder to keep going with non-feeding settling efforts when I was knackered in the middle of the night.

@Dillybear Do get rid of your monitor!!! Leave your door open a crack and your baby's. You will sleep so much better and won't hear the sniffles and grunts but only the cries of they happen. I got rid of mine about 6 months and my anxiety decreased hugely.

Thanks @TradedAtlanta. We have had a very mixed bag of success with settling him. DH is a teacher so we are going to work on it during half term when he doesn't have to get up at 6 every day!