Does night weaning actually help sleep?

[sleeepymama]

First post after longtime lurking.

I'm wondering about people's experiences weaning baby off breastfeeding to sleep please. Did it actually reduce night waking and lead to longer chunks of sleep?

My 12month old is currently waking every 45-90 mins all night long. It's killing me. It's been like this for months and only getting worse.

He's breastfed to sleep, never took a bottle or a dummy (despite best efforts) so we have nothing else to offer him.
He won't settle for a cuddle or rocking from me or anyone else. He's immediately hysterical upon waking and just wants boob straight back to sleep.

I'm somewhat demotivated to make a change because

1. I can't bear to see him so upset
2. I just want to get us both back to sleep fast as possible
3. what if night weaning makes zero difference anyways? Then what if I'm left rocking a baby 10-15 times a night instead?

Would love to hear night weaning experiences from those who were in a similar situation or those who just rode it out and baby slept better naturally over time despite feeding to sleep?

Thank you!

It helped us, although he would take a dummy and was waking every 2-3 hours. Did it at 11.5 months. He slept through a week later. I couldn't face doing the whole night in one go so first night I didn't feed after 5am, then 2am, then 10pm. First night I basically cuddled, rocked & sung to him whilst he cried, but as it was only a couple of hours until morning it didn't feel to torturous. Next night he shocked me by falling back to sleep!
I agree that we have still have phases where he has woken at night, and it is a lot harder to get him back to sleep without breastfeeding. But I would still take the odd night of him being up for an hour than the everyday slog of broken sleep.

I did the same as fighoney. Sleeping through after 3 days. AND we got longer naps during the day. Best thing I ever did.You have to accept that your son will be furious to start with though!!

I think if I had 10 snacks every night I’d be unsettled too!!

Night weaning made very little difference for us - I'm afraid it was 2 years after we night weaned that DS first slept through, and another 6 months before he did so consistently. The only thing that really helped was splitting the nights so we each got a consistent stretch of sleep as 45 min sleep cycles are not enough for an adult.

It did help us a bit but she still doesn't sleep through (at nearly 2 😴). They are all so different though, it's impossible to say for sure until you've tried it.

Weaned both of mine at 12 months, both terrible sleepers. DS went down to one wake up within a few nights, and then dropped that when we removed the dummy at 18 months. DD it made no difference and we had to sleep train a few months later as was at breaking point. I definitely think it's worth a try! It was no harder to settle DD without the boob much to my surprise, but she did have a dummy.

Hi Sleepymama,
I am in the same boat as you, my Son is 17 months old. I cannot give you any answers but I can say that you are not alone.
Keep up the good work & do what you feel in your heart is right.
My Son understands much of what I say so as he grows older I am going to explain to him that Milk is for morning etc….. fingers crossed this works
at the same time though, I agree it might not & then we might be left with no milk & an upset Toddler.
Good Luck with what may or may not be the end of your breastfeeding journey x

Why wouldn’t you try? A one year definitely doesn’t need night feeds let alone every 2 hours. It’s just a habit now. Offer him water instead and rock at the beginning. One bad habit at the time, you can’t stop night feeds and not rock him at the beginning.

In my experience yes, but not instantly

It didn't stop the night waking, for me, but he was easier to get back to sleep via cuddles afterwards, which either me or dp could do. So it did make my life easier.

It worked miracles for us. Went from waking every 90 minutes to sleeping through in about a
month, maybe less.

We were extremely lucky. DS didn’t find it upsetting at all. If anything, he was pleased to not be next to me all night and waking up so much. I’m sure a lot of other toddlers would find it traumatic. You should expect for it to potentially get worse, before it gets better. It is a form of sleep training, after all.

The key is to not replace breastfeeding with something unsustainable, like rocking. When they wake up it needs to be something easy, eg patting and humming (which is what DH did), if you still want to be responsive.

Thank you all so much for sharing your experiences!
It has given me a lot to think about.
I particularly like the idea of gradually reducing by cutting some of the early morning feeds and working backwards. I do worry that at 4/5am though the sleep pressure is so little that actually tears and screaming would probably take over entirely and that would be us up for the day!
I'm just so scared to make a change as i don't want to upset him or go through any more stress than I'm already under after a year of no sleep 🙈

Yes, not straight away but he was pretty much sleeping through by 15 months after night weaning around 1. It was slightly easier for us as I went back to doing night shifts so we didn't have a choice. Dad did and still does any night wakes at now 3. It was heaven after seeing every hour on the click for 6 months

Thank you and good luck to you! I have also heard that it can be helpful to wait until they can communicate enough to understand, so I did wonder if it would be worth waiting (while praying that his sleep improves naturally by then!)
But now that we're onto pretty much hourly wakes all night long I'm not sure how long I can wait

It must be so lovely to finally sleep after all that. I honestly can't even imagine what it would feel like - it's been that long

We're just out the other side of this. Had a good sleeper who gradually got worse and worse. Waking every two hours turned to waking every hour or more. I think he was being driven mad by the smell of the milk being in beside me and no one was getting any decent sleep. He just wanted on the boobs constantly. I cracked when I realised that half the time he wasn't even feeding, just wanted boobs in his mouth!

First step was getting him into his own room at 8 months. That helped a bit and got us back to him waking every two hours (!) He's 9 months now and I didn't want to do anything too harsh so we did a gradual shift to his dad going in at night instead of me. He offers a sippy cup of water, dummy and cuddles.

So Monday night he went in once, Tuesday twice, Wednesday 3 times etc etc. Until I wasn't going in at all. Stuck at it for a week or so until he was sleeping through.

His dad can settle him so quickly, sometimes a pat on the bum and "shh shh" is all it takes. Whereas if I went in he'd be screaming for the milk.

There will be ups and downs and set backs whenever he's unwell but he's now used to being soothed by his dad and we've got a method to return to.

Oh wow that sounds great! Well done for riding it out. I think we're going to have to try something like this.
Sent husband in to do a resettle last night and he managed to get him back to sleep after 10 long horrible minutes of rocking and crying. But once down here did his longest stint for a while (2.5 hours!) so I think I will help if he could do some resettles.

We night weaned our first (bottles) at about 15m. It went from being up twice a night for 15m each, to baby being awake for 2hrs+ because she didnt have an easy way to go back. We regretted it immensely. She slept through from the ages of 3-4 but is still waking moat nights now at 5.

Our second we didn't night wean, but she did that herself at just before 2, and suddenly started sleeping through of her own accord. She sometimes wakes at 3, and sometimes for a prolonged period, but shes been seriously ill, so likely not to do with normal development.

So sometimes it helps. Sometimes it makes it worse.

I didn't night wean and breastfed until he was 3. The night feeds just became less and less. We coslept, which meant at least him feeding and settling back to sleep didn't really involve either of us having to move but at some points it was very often, I'd lose count of the times. I was lucky that at a year he was sleeping through the majority of nights. This is when we moved him to a toddler bed/ cot. I had to get in with him and feed him to sleep but generally he did sleep. Then my husband and I would take it in turns to settle him if he did wake.

Would love to know how you got on as I'm in a similar boat, thanks 😊