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!

Haha! Yeah I know but it took us a while to make tiny-Traded1 and I’m no spring chicken. It’s a bit morbid but I don’t want my DD to have sole responsibility for caring/organising care for us when we’re old and senile - I’d like her to have a sibling to share the burden with. Plus I’m kidding myself that number 2 will be the fabled good sleeper!

And yes, still breastfeeding morning and bedtime too. I’ve just got rid of the mid afternoon one so that she doesn’t have to face going to childcare and losing middle of the day feeds at the same time. My boobs were really sore not giving that feed though so she must still have been taking quite a bit.

@TradedAtlanta that makes a lot of sense and it doesn’t sound morbid to me. I actually completely agree with you. I just can’t imagine going through this crappy sleep again!! I didn’t sleep when I was pregnant either. Even from the first trimester I was up on bad nights 7 times to pee. But then I do already miss my snuggly newborn. DD is always so busy now, too busy to cuddle her mama unless she’s tired or something bad has happened, like a fall or a scary noise, bless her! So I could imagine being stupid enough to do it all over again!

My HV told me that DD wouldn’t be having milk during the day by the time she’s 9 months, and I thought as I was going back to work when she’s 10 months then I wouldn’t need to worry about milk feeds - but from the sounds of it that’s not right - your DD is still having feeds during the day at 12m. Probably need to think about that then!

DD’s naps have been a bit crappy today so who knows what’s in store for me tonight. Feeling really on edge and down about it all this evening.

How was last night @Dillybear, I hope it wasn’t too bad! I don’t have any advice as I haven’t tried CC but if you know your DD has a slight regression before improving then I guess it’s worth persevering. You don’t want all your efforts to be wasted! How long have you been doing it now?

I haven’t fed overnight for 4 nights now! I’m not getting excited in case it’s a fluke and ironically I’ve been getting a lot less sleep overall with being up worrying if DD will wake up.
Night 1.she woke up around 3ish & DH went in to resettle. He has never before managed to do it at this wake up; I always feed. It took a while & I was so close to going in on several occasions but eventually she went down without a feed.
Night 2. I gave her formula after boob at bedtime and she slept through. Thought maybe that was the magic answer; although formula has never helped with the 3/4am waking before. She slept through!
Night 3. Formula again, but woke up & DH resettled so not the answer.
Night 4. No formula, woke up at 6 briefly, quick shush and went back down until 7!
So who knows what’s happening but it’s given me the confidence not to feed overnight. I keep waking up & staring at the monitor and my sleep has been terrible but I can’t blame anyone else for that.

@Dillybear oh I’m also surprised by what your HV said! I know several 9mo and all of them have feeds during the day! I still do 4/5 milk feeds during the day & I have actually been thinking about when I should cut them down. It isn’t affected DD’s solid intake but I wouldn’t mind cutting them down.
A friend with a 10mo has just dropped to am & pm feed only.

Hope it was ok @Dillybear. Sometimes I think the knowledge that is widely available about baby sleep can be a hindrance as well as a help. Like you, if we have bad naps I go into the night with trepidation and feeling like a failure for having got the day ‘wrong’. I think if I didn’t know the advice that sleep begets sleep, ok, maybe overall she’d sleep worse but I’d be freed from the sense of responsibility that I could (or maybe should) be doing better and I think I’d be able to just ride with the punches.

@June628, that sounds wonderful! Seems like she’s getting the message there.

I find the advice on breastfeeding really contradictory. NHS clearly says until 12 months milk should be their main source of calories and if they are hungry between meals, don’t give snacks, give extra milk feeds. But then from multiple places I’ve also heard by 12 months I’d probably be down to one feed in 24 hours. It doesn’t add up! Even after first birthday the books say 400ml of milk a day - my DD is a formula and cows milk refuser so I don’t know how I’m meant to get 400ml in her without more breastfeeds. Sorry for the rant, just I think the ‘they’ll be doing this and that’ advice is really unhelpful as it just leaves you feeling you’re doing something wrong when actually the babies just haven’t read the books!

@June628 that’s fantastic progress! You’ve come such a long way in such a short space of time! So positive that she’s managed to sleep through. It’s frustrating that when the babies decide they’ll sleep we are wide awake anyway.

@TradedAtlanta I completely agree with you about too much information/knowledge/advice - on everything baby related! My mum keeps saying to me that she didn’t know all this stuff when she had babies and that she isn’t convinced it’s helping me. I think it’s probably true, to be honest!

Another tricky night here, with two hours awake. She isn’t getting upset, there are never any tears. She’s intermittently shouting and, it seems, that she’s mainly upset about being awake when she wants to be asleep. Essentially, it’s not very different from what we had before, just we’ve dropped the feed at the beginning of the stupidly long wake up. I was thinking last night that I just want to give up because this isn’t what we intended - her being up for hours every night isn’t doing anyone any good and it doesn’t feel right for me as a mother not to go to her. A couple of days is one thing but I didn’t think it would go on this long. At the same time, even when I comfort her and soothe her and sit up with her it makes no difference. When she has these long wake ups I find I just have to wait them out. And then I think it has helped in some ways - she’s come such a long way - 8/9/10/11 hour stretches of sleep would have been an impossible dream a week or two ago. So would just one wake up. And I also think why did we bother to put all of us through this if we just stop. It’s just knowing how long to persevere for, I guess.

@TradedAtlanta @June628 @Stringervest @Smudgefell

How are you guys getting on? I hope the baby sleep gods are with you all. We had a rough few nights over here with long wake ups after that first sleep through, and I was very close to giving up, but she has actually slept through again for the last two nights! I don’t really believe it’ll ‘stick’ just yet - I even feel like writing this will jinx it! The first night I was awake from around 3am, but I slept a little better last night. I’m sure that if she carries on sleeping well (for now at least) I will learn how to sleep again.

That's great news! Really pleased for you! Long may it continue.

We had a couple of rough nights last week but then went for it with CC. We had four sleep throughs in a row and were feeling smug and well rested but then last night was a massive regression. He woke at 10:40 and was awake crying for 1.5 hours. We popped in regularly to reassure him but I think that made it worse. I knew if I fed him he'd go to sleep but I also knew he definitely didn't need milk and I didn't want to undo all our hard work. It's like he knew he needed to go back to sleep but couldn't work out how to.

I'm hoping that, like for you, it's a blip and things will improve again.

@Stringervest four in a row!! Amazing! I would be smug too after four and then bam! It’s like they just want to remind you who’s in charge. I read that wake ups in the first third of the night are often to do with teething or pain as it’s the deepest sleep and most of the times babies don’t wake so early. Could have been teeth? Otherwise it sounds a lot like my DD. Just furious she’s not asleep and I can’t make her be asleep!! I hope tonight he sleeps again. Really positive that he stayed down after the long wake, at least.

Whoop whoop @Dillybear and @Stringervest - all that lovely, restful sleep! No more sleep throughs here to report... I do think those two we had were that she was a bit poorly. Though last night when she woke up at 11.30 I didn’t give her a whole feed as I thought perhaps I could wean it down until she stops bothering to wake up. Then I couldn’t get myself to fall asleep so I went and slept on the sofa. Woke at 6.30 feeling smug and rested until DH told me he’d been in to settle her repeatedly and she’d only really slept from about 2am. At least one person in the house slept through.... I feel a bit bad because I haven’t actually told him why she didn’t just go back to sleep as normal. Then the other half of me thinks he didn’t give up and ask me to go and feed her because he thought I’d already done it so maybe I should cut the feed down even further tonight??? I am a bad wife!

Hi all!
haven’t fed overnight for 7 nights now! Can’t believe it! DD has generally slept through or if she hasn’t she’s been easy to resettle. Don’t want to get too happy because I know it might not last/ sleep isn’t linear etc etc. I’m glad I took the plunge & did the night weaning.
Lovely to see everyone else is doing well/ better!
@TradedAtlanta you’re not a bad wife at all! You’ve earned a restful night and if your DD could be settled without a full feed then it sounds like if you do try to cut it down further it might gradually work & she might stop waking up for it, fingers crossed!

I’m so glad I found this thread to give me the confidence to try night weaning! I was so disheartened after the one I started and people repeatedly telling me not to bother... you guys have been a great support- thank you!!!

@June628 That’s amazing progress! So nice that we are all starting to get slightly better sleep and feel more human.

@TradedAtlanta you are not a bad wife! You deserve sleep too. If you had been settling her you wouldn’t have gone and got your DH either. And you don’t know for certain that’s why it took ages for her to settle. Babies are fickle creatures - it could have been anything!

@TradedAtlanta you're not a bad wife but I think it's interesting what you say about her settling even though she hadn't had a full feed. That's a good sign. Tapering off the feeds didn't work for either of my babies, although I tried it repeatedly because it's what all the books and blogs suggest. Neither baby got the memo about the volumes reducing and it just prolonged the pain. Ultimately I found going cold turkey was the only thing that worked, and quickly . Although last night didn't work out too well so you might want to ignore my advice!

@Dillybear DS has always woken at between 10 and 11 even though most babies learn to sleep longer and longer for their first stretch. I don't think it was teeth as his cry didn't sound like he was in pain. But he's napped terribly today so something's definitely up with him.

Although I'm not wishing this time away, it gets SO much easier when they're old enough to tell you what's wrong.

Thanks everyone! She woke up even earlier than usual last night so decided (buoyed by all your stories) that we had the energy just to keep going with non-feeding settling. Took me over an hour and a half, including the pin down calpol application for the ongoing disaster that is her teething. In the end I just lay down on the futon in her room and pretended to be asleep, and my DH furtively messaged me when he could see on the night vision of the monitor that she was rubbing her eyes and trying her best to go to sleep and I snuck back out. She then slept through the night from there so no feeding all night. Boobs were really sore come the morning!

Well done @TradedAtlanta! It’s so annoying it takes much longer than a quick feed but hopefully after a few times it’ll all be worth it

That's brilliant progress @TradedAtlanta. What you have described is exactly what happened with us last week. A few nights of that and DS slept through. DD has shown you that she doesn't need feeding overnight. IMO if she was hungry she'd have woken again. Based on what happened with us I'd suggest doing exactly the same thing for the next few nights.

Ps DS slept through last night, stirring from 4:30, I fed him at 6. So the upward trajectory has been reinstated for us.

@TradedAtlanta that’s great news! I agree with the others, I would keep going. I’m guessing she wasn’t starving when she woke up - just shows she doesn’t ‘need’ the feed in terms of calories. You’re just helping her to break the habit now.

Another sleep through here - 7-6.10! I am also sleeping a little better each night. Really hope it continues.

Hi all! Sorry for lack of reply on here, have been a bit busy (and still sleep-deprived!) so not been on much...

So glad to hear all the success stories, very pleased for you all. It's giving me a bit of hope! Tried a few different tricks over the last week or so, including tapering off feeding and water instead of milk. A couple of times it's worked but more often than not it's been a bit disastrous. Beginning to think cold turkey may be the only way. I just don't know if I can handle the screaming meltdown and the consequent sobbing/hyperventilating type breathing that she does.

There's been a bit of success with her dummy (she now likes it and I think it helps her settle when I take the milk away) where before she hated it. Is this a bad idea? Will I end up regretting it?

She is still waking up a lot - longest stretch is 4 hours, quite often between 6 pm and 10 pm, then about every 2 hours or less sometimes. She's napping well during the day most days (2 hours at about 9 or 10 am, then 2 hours at about 2 or 3 pm). Is that too much? I thought it was the recommended amount.

Instead of giving milk if she is upset/crying when I go in at night I sometimes pick her up/cuddle her. Is that a bad idea? It doesn't usually work and I end up feeding her most of the time as she becomes super upset and more awake. Maybe that's when she's actually just hungry?

I don't know anymore! It all feels like masses of guesswork and I spend every night in a bleary, semi-awake state just waiting for her to start crying. I don't want to dob my DP in but he really doesn't help (he is working full time in a stressful job that also involves long commutes of 2 hours plus each way). I don't expect him to do night feeding but I am constantly worried she is waking him up, worried about him getting (understandably) angry/frustrated with her and feel responsible. He quite often says we should leave her to cry (sometimes it does work) but then he also gets annoyed when she wakes him up... And sometimes he goes in and tells her off quite crossly, which I hate. So I'm torn in all directions!

Sorry if my ranting has made little sense, I'm a bit of a nervy, tired mess at the moment

Oh @Smudgefell , that all sounds difficult! I have been where you are, questioning everything you do and assuming that when it doesn’t go well it’s all your fault for doing everything wrong. It’s not. And this won’t last forever. Sounds like you’re really unlucky that self settling hasn’t resulted in your LO reliably linking sleep cycles. I read somewhere that some babies need to have a bigger gap between the last feed and bed, say 20 minutes, otherwise they still keep an association between milk and sleep, even though they’re not sucking to sleep. Worth an easy, doesn’t involve loads of crying in the night shot before considering cold turkey? That is, if you are not already doing it.

I can see how tough it must be with your DH having a commute like that. If you did want to try a more assertive form of night weaning, would there be a chance of your DH booking some annual leave like @Dillybear ‘s did so you can do it together? Without meaning to put words in her mouth, it sounded like that really helped.

The news from Atlanta is that our one night of not giving in to that last feed had immediate results. I didn’t have the monitor again but DH said he heard one Peep! noise from her about 3am and otherwise not a thing 7-6. We had to wake her up then to get a big enough wake time for a nap before her first settling visit to the childminder. Gulp! Tiny-Traded is growing up

@TradedAtlanta aaaaahhhh that’s amazing news!! I’m so pleased for you! Well done Tiny Traded! I hope she’s more sensible than my little one, but if she regresses - keep pushing through. You can do this and so can she!

Last night not so good for us - little Dilly (Dilly is actually a weird nickname we use for her sometimes even though it has nothing to do with her actual name) went down fine at 7, but woke screaming with teething pain at 12.20 and then woke early from it as well, around 5.40. She was writhing around in my arms and inconsolable, bless her, and I can see her top teeth are just now starting to cut through. But I’m not too disheartened as the night wake was less than it would have been - only 40 minutes. Once the nurofen had kicked in she was able to get herself back off to sleep and I could tell (from her breathing - how well do we know these kids?!) that she wasn’t after a feed, just needed some medicine and a cuddle and all was okay again.

@Smudgefell what a horrible situation, you sound so stressed. I’m really sorry. It’s so fucking hard, and your DP sounds like he’s really not helping. Totally get the stressful job/long commute thing, but telling her off isn’t going to help any of you! It sounds like you’re both really stressed, and maybe need some time to come up with a strategy you both agree on and follow it through. I totally agree with @TradedAtlanta - my DH taking time off helped loads as we didn’t have the stress of him needing to be in work the following day, and it felt less alone for me that we did it together. When she woke, we got up, put the light on, put queer eye on the laptop (something mindless and cheerful where there isn’t any plot), and dealt with the wake ups and the stress rather than it being just my problem. Is there any chance your DP could do that?

Re naps and dummy. I am not an expert by any means, but I did take my DD’s dummy away around 5 months. It was a lifesaver to begin with for her to get to sleep, and then it was a nightmare having to put it in over and over again - if you’re going to give the dummy I would look at getting one of those bunny things to help her put it back in herself so you’re not up and down all night for a different reason!! Also, it does sound like she’s napping a lot - how much night sleep is she getting on average? She might well be making up for the bad nights during the day. But then, if that’s the case, it probably makes most sense to work on the nights and the nap lengths will probably reduce naturally as she won’t be so tired during the day?? Who knows - babies are not logical creatures!!

It sounds like your DD gets really upset during wake ups, which must be really hard. Maybe you could reduce the frequency of feeds to every four hours or something? If you think she’s hungry? But that might also just prolong the agony. I 100% trust that you’ll know best what’s right for your DD. I do think a baby’s personality is a big factor in what approach I will work best for them. I realised that when DD was waking up for these long periods that I was trying everything I could think of to get her back to sleep, and actually it was just not helping at all. She wasn’t distressed beyond being cross that she was awake and just needed to work out for herself how to get back to sleep. It was hard to just step back but it’s been the best thing for her sleep, and has been a bit of a lesson to me as a mum that actually sometimes I don’t need to swoop in - when she needs me of course that’s different, but she is her own little person and I can’t do/fix everything for her.

The main thing is though I think whatever you decide to do just try to be consistent so she knows what to expect. Whatever path you take, it’ll be a few really tough nights. I think that just the process of preparing for that and coming up with a plan can really help to get through it. Or at least, it did for me.

Sending lots of strength and solidarity your way. Keep posting here to tell me/us how it’s going. I expect my DD’s sleep will still be very up and down so I’m sure I’ll be here lots too still!

Thank you both for your lovely replies! Again, so pleased that things seem to be getting better for you sleep-wise! So sorry to hear about little Dilly's teething pains though! It's so miserable and you just want to take the pain on for them, poor things. I know what you mean about the breathing We do know them ridiculously well in some ways!

I thought I was doing quite well last night (until this morning...). She went down at 6.30ish, woke up at 9.30 pm and I gave her a tiny bit of milk that was left over (30 ml or less) and as she drained the bottle she rolled over and went back to sleep straight away. Didn't wake up till about midnight, I just cuddled her and put her back down. She fell asleep again. Did this once more at about 3ish. Then she woke up at 5, wouldn't be comforted at all and cried loudly so I gave in and gave her milk. Pulled it off her after a while and gave her dummy. She protested and cried, DP got up and said he couldn't do this any more and left for work. I'd got her down from 2.5 bottles a night (120ml each) to under 1 bottle, thought it was a success. Big fat fail!

I think that DP taking time off would be a good idea to try and start the weaning process seriously. Like you said @TradedAtlanta and @Dillybear, it would make me feel less alone and worried about him being woken up.

I will definitely try spacing out time between bedtime and feeding like you suggested Traded. I've been giving her milk and cuddles in our bed recently directly before putting her in her room for bedtime. It really seemed to calm her down but I will try milk first, then just cuddles and maybe a book directly before bed.

I think you're right in saying I need to just be consistent Dillybear, and also think you may be onto something with the idea that they're their own little person and you can't fix everything for them. Sometimes I want to leave her to try and self-soothe back to sleep but the noise is so disruptive to DP I just swoop in to stop it - not ideal at all. All goes back to the idea of him taking time off!

I'll talk to him about it tonight and see what he says. Thanks for all your help ladies and I'll keep you posted. Hope you and your bubbas continue to soldier on!

Hi all! I hope your babies weren’t disturbed by any fireworks last night. I was quite worried about it but it didn’t seem to bother DD with the white noise on.
@TradedAtlanta how did the settling session go? Hope it all went well!
@Smudgefell I don’t have anything to add that hasn’t been said already but just wanted to say don’t be too hard on yourself! It’s not your fault your little one is waking up and disturbing your husband’s sleep. I feel like him getting more on board with night weaning/ sleep training will be really helpful for you. You really need to be on the same page to tackle it and stop you feeling lonely and like you should just feed them or otherwise it’s your fault when all your doing is helping them get better quality sleep and in turn you and your DH will get better sleep too.

Hi @June628 - thanks for thinking of us. Yes it went ok. The childminder sent us some nice photos of her playing so I know she wasn’t miserable the whole time. She was crying pretty hard when I got there to pick her up but stopped as soon as I held her and was her usual cheerful self all afternoon. I’m guessing when she sees the childminder today she’s going to start bawling as she knows what’s going to happen. It’s horrible thinking they don’t know you’re ever coming back for them but hopefully in a few short weeks she’ll be loving it. Another sleep through here. So lovely of the country to celebrate our night weaning success with a load of fireworks!

@TradedAtlanta that’s amazing! Can’t believe how quickly it’s worked for you. Hope you are also getting decent sleep now. It must be so hard to leave her but she’ll be really loving it in no time. And every time you come back to get her you are showing her that you will always come back.

@Smudgefell how was your night? The night before last it sounds like you did so well. Sleep deprivation is such a killer - I’m guessing your DP is being off like that because he’s really tired. It’s definitely taken its toll on my marriage. But we are getting along better now that I’m slowly feeling less exhausted (hopefully it continues!). But yeah just want to echo what @June628 said - it’s not your fault, or your sole responsibility. She’s got two parents! You’re doing brilliantly.

Another sleep through for us as well. DD was teething badly all day so I was expecting a wake up but there wasn’t so much as a peep out of her until 6.15. I am slowly starting to sleep better, too.