Night weaning a breastfed baby

[SilentRefluxAdvicePlease]

Hi all, looking for advice and experience from those who have exclusively breastfed their baby up until starting solids.
My eight month old baby has never taken a bottle and does not yet drink from a cup, so formula and water at night are not options for us. She reliably eats two small solid meals per day; breakfast is offered but sometimes refused. On average she naps twice in the day for 30 minutes at a time, which can sometimes be lengthened if in the sling or pram. She is not a baby that I can lay down and leave to drift off by herself, which I have accepted!
Baby currently wakes four or five times each night. As my username suggests, we have had separate struggles with suspected silent reflux, but have managed to get this under much better control in recent weeks. I no longer think she is waking in pain or discomfort. When baby wakes, nine times out of ten she is looking for the breast. She settles quickly when I feed her. I can tell very quickly whether she will be comforted by a cuddle rather than a feed and if I try to refuse a feed when this is what she is looking for, she becomes very upset. Leaving her to cry is not an option for me currently; I accept that I might need to do so one day, but I am not ready yet.
So, my question is, can anyone share their experience (baby’s age, approach, how long this took) of night weaning a breastfed baby who does not drink from a bottle or a cup in the day? I have read that 12 months is probably a good time to consider night weaning a breast fed baby, but of course this feels like a long time away and will coincide with my return to work. I do not expect baby to sleep ‘through the night’, but have not had a solid night’s sleep myself in around nine months and I miss that! We have been maximising sleep by having baby sleep in our room, in her own cot but with the side taken off and pushed up next to our bed (would describe as a sidecar arrangement). Thanks so much, all.

I night weaned my son at around 8/9 months. He was waking hourly and I was due to return to work and my mental health was in pieces. It was the right decision for us!

We firstly moved his cot away from our bed (still in our room) which helped with the temptation just to give in.

The first phase was to stop feeding him to sleep. I still fed him last thing but ensure that just as he was nodding off, I took him off the breast, held him out in front of me until I could see his eyes open, and only then put him into his cot. He wasn’t happy about this and it did take a few nights of fury for him to start to reliably fall asleep. We patted his bum, or stroked him to soothe him, only picking him up if he was really struggling.

Once we’d done this a few times and it was getting easier, we set a wake up time, and specific night feed times. I think we decided on 10, 1 and 4ish. If he woke up within half an hour before those times, I fed him but otherwise he had to wait. Obviously if needed we soothed him.

After a few nights as above, we began to gradually decrease the night feeds by a couple of minutes each time. I firstly started with the 10pm feed, cutting it down from 10, to 8, to 6 etc. minutes until he eventually stopped waking for it. Then we worked on the 1am feed, then the 4am feed.

It was a long, slow process. It probably took a month or so. But the sleep incrementally improved, and after the first week of initial fury he got better and better at falling asleep in the cot awake.

Thanks so much for your reply, this is really helpful to have your approach set out! Please may I ask, were you breastfeeding on demand in the daytime at this point? Or to a rough schedule?

Completely on demand in the daytime. Offered whenever it might be useful to calm him down, get five minutes peace etc. 😂

Thank you, sounds similar to us! Glad to hear things improved at night for you, even if it took a little while 🙂

I EBF, I think I waited until about 10 months when baby was then mostly having solids and then just did small feeds. Naturally they'll start having more solids and less BF, I think if I remember I followed solids with BF after, whereas prior to that it was BF followed by solids. Are you on a time restraint? If not, I'd just slowly wean off naturally

Mine didn't have colic and was always a good sleeper, I think slept through at around 9 months. I think it's a myth that BF babies don't sleep as well perpetuated by people who FF

Thanks @Passingthethyme! I suppose there is a time restraint, but it’s not urgent, as I have at least four months until I’ll be going back to work. So by that point it would be amazing to have less night wakings (again, I’m not expecting there to be none!) 🙂
I have to agree with you that breastfed babies are not necessarily poorer sleepers; although before having my baby I never imagined that she wouldn’t sleep well even by eight months! Motherhood has humbled me 😂 I have friends and relatives who exclusively breastfed, some of their babies were great sleepers and others less so. My baby is incredibly interested in everything and seems to find it hard to switch off, day or night. I am grateful that at least I have a tool to get her back to sleep quickly in the middle of the night.

Mine is now 2.5 so I'm trying to remember, if I recall the advice is that BF is more important than solids until 1 year. I'd also suggest engaging with a sleep consultant if you can afford it, I did this and even though my baby was already a good sleeper it was quite amazing. A few things I remember is that day sleep affects night sleep so if they are over tired or under tired this will affect how well they sleep at night. At 8 months I think it's wake at 7, half hour nap 9.30. Then nap again 12.30- 2.00, then bed 6.30 - 7.00. I suggest using a professional as there are variables which are hard to figure out on your own, also the key is consistency with routine (which is hard to do if you're not sure what you are doing). I'm quite inexperienced though, so just wanted to offer a fee suggestions. Also if I recall, don't give red meat at night as this cam affect sleep, but do give plenty of protein, so eggs, yoghurt, cheese etc. And also you can do gentle sleep training. If you can, see if you can get some advice from an expert. Sorry I can't be of more help, best of luck!

I also moved out of baby's room around 8 months and I'm sure that helped with them sleeping too

My son wasn't having night feeds from 12 weeks. I fed him every 2 hours during the day so he got all his calories in.

I nightweaned my eldest at 18 months but with hindsight realised it was too early and distressed her. With my youngest I did it around 2 and it was a much better experience.

That's probably not what you want to hear, but your baby is young and is biologically designed to expect to feed around the clock.

Similar experience to you Op, although maybe I am one of the lucky ones.
17 month old baby, fully EBF on demand from birth, because of BF she wouldn't take to a bottle ever and still doesn't, however she takes from a sippy cup now.
I couldn't wean her, it was too stressful for both me and her, so I continued to feed in the night, although as the months went by she naturally started to feed less & less.
I last BF her to sleep in October last year, she just didn't need it anymore and stopped waking up for feeds and started sleeping right through all on her own, no weaning required! she was 14 months. I don't have any milk now and life has returned to pretty much normal with me getting a full nights sleep.
So hang on in there, it does get better, you may find your baby might just stop naturally like mine did.

Posted about this in response to another thread earlier in Parenting. My DS is 6 months and we've recently started night weaning him. We night weaned my DD at 10 months (DS is a worse sleeper hence I'm trying earlier). Both are/were breastfed on demand during the day.

Unlike the PP, I didn't and haven't stopped feeding to sleep as I always found that super easy and didn't want to lose that element - neither child seems to be affected by keeping that part whilst also reducing night waking by weaning. What we did was use my DH, so have you got a partner?

We started by sending my DH in to do alternate resettles, and limiting the feeds to roughly once every 3.5 hours to start with (so if he woke under 3.5 hours since his last feed, DH would go and resettle, anything longer and I went in and fed back to sleep). Yes, DS wasn't too happy to start with, but he would eventually go to sleep when rocked by DH (he wouldn't let me use this method as he can smell my milk, hence you ideally need someone else to step in). Every week we extend the gaps between feeds by half an hour, so we're now up to 4.5 hours between feeds in the night, which basically amounts to one or two feeds depending on when he first goes down. We'll keep stretching the gaps until he sleeps through.

This method allows me to still feed to sleep, which I selfishly wanted to keep as it allows for a quick bedtime and a quick resettle when feeding in the night. It does however leave DH with the more difficult resettles (but he sees this as his chance to take some of the burden off of me having nursed 24/7 for so many months before we got to this point)

Thank you @Passingthethyme! We have actually had a consultation with a sleep consultant but had to put the plan on hold before we’d even started, as we suspected baby had silent reflux. Now that those symptoms have passed we are considering using the sleep consultant at some point later on. Thanks also @zurala, I am grateful to hear this perspective, because I am prepared to be breastfeeding at night for a while longer but still do question myself sometimes, especially when friends ask me if baby is sleeping through yet (and even worse, when I will stop breastfeeding!? As if I can just choose to stop feeding baby!)
Great news @OooohAhhhh, this is lovely to hear and gives me hope that sleep will return one day 🙂
Yes, I do have a partner @sexnotgenders and he has tried to help resettle baby, but she can get very upset and often reaches a point where my husband and I agree that it’s kindest to feed her. However, I think we could be better at trying this more consistently (I often won’t even ask husband to try, as I resign myself to knowing I’ll end up going in to feed anyway). So thank you for sharing what worked for you!

I won't lie, when we started night weaning, the first few times DH resettled both our DD and DS, they totally lost their shit. He once rocked DS for 90 minutes as he screamed in fury at not getting the boob. But he was being held at all times by his father, so whilst he was very upset, he wasn't scared or abandoned (although I do wonder if just leaving him would've actually been preferable to him). Their cries were about having to put up with daddy and not having the lovely breast milk, and I was ok with that, and then over time, they came to accept his way of resettling them. I do think if anything, it's healthier for them to be capable of being settled to sleep by both parents, and it means if either one of us is ill/away, the other can still manage the kids. It also takes the pressure off of me as being the only one who does that job. And as I say, using this method has also been a way for me to preserve feeding to sleep when needed.

I think it's about finding an approach that you and your partner both feel comfortable with

Agree with all of this.

We did a very similar approach to umph. At 6.5 months we stopped feeding to sleep and put in cot awake (was some days of protest but we stayed and comforted him). Initially offered two spaced out breast feeds in the night and he dropped to one naturally around 10months I think and I dropped the final one around 12 months. Started sleeping through shortly after this so the milk was definitely a factor

Thanks @sexnotgenders and actually, your point about it being better for them to accept either parent in the night resonates with me. Thank you also @tulipsunday, it’s helpful to hear your timeline.