Night weaning....

[gorillalala]

Hello!

DS is 4.5 months old and wakes in the night once or twice usually for a feed. The times he wakes are quite variable. He does usually drink about 3-5oz at each feed.

I've read that by 4-6 months old babies are developmentally and physically capable of sleeping through the night, and I've been reading some different approaches to help us get there.

My question is - is he likely to get there himself once we start weaning him onto real food? If so, it's not worth the effort to change things now - we'll just survive for another 2 months. Or would you try to night wean him now....?

4 months is far too early. 6 months yes most can theoretically manage through the night without being fed but some still feed for many months. All babies are different, some drop it automatically, some need weaning at some point. I definitely wouldn't try anything until 6 months at the earliest. Ours just stopped at around 6.5/7 months but it didn't correlate with weaning (she was a very slow starter with poor intake initially).

Our baby started sleeping through once we started him on food but it didn't last, there's always another regression around the corner

DS was 20 months before he didn’t want a feed overnight. And after that he still wakes every now and again. If your setup isn’t working for you, then you can try to change it. But it is developmentally quite normal for small humans to still need some sort of parenting overnight. (I don’t know how to reword that so that it doesn’t sound snarky, but I don’t mean it like that.)

I didn't night wean till 7 or nearly 8 months I think it was. Definitely not 4.5 months. I think they say 6 months can manage without a feed. We decided to wait until our lo was established on solids a bit more first.

Thanks all, I'll wait until he's a bit older before deciding what to do :)

(I think for me it's the uncertainty about whether he actually needs feeding or just wants a cuddle or needs a burp etc - as his wake times in the night are so variable, I'm a bit like "if he went 6 hours between feeds last night he can probably go a bit longer than 3 hours tonight.. right?" .... and am constantly second guessing.)

At this age, there's probably no harm in trying a cuddle and a burp first, if it's been just a short while since the last feed. If he doesn't need milk he'll go back to sleep, if he does need milk he'll let you know!

I agree, it’s definitely too young to purposefully refuse feeds in order to night wean, but I’ve had friends who had success with just trying everything else before offering a feed, it takes some self discipline but it can work if they’re ready to go without feeding. But equally they might not be ready and then everyone is just awake for longer and more agitated…

For context my breastfed baby still has a large feed once a night at 12 months, despite a bottle of formula at bedtime.