How to stop 10.5 month old needing 4-5am breastfeed to resettle

[snm88]

My son (10.5 months) has been EBF and never taken a bottle (I’ve tried but he just doesn’t get the hang of it). Anyway I’m preparing to stop BFing and am now down to four nursing sessions a day. I think he could quite happily forgo the daytime feeds as he loves his food. However there’s that blasted 4-5am wake up that happens every.damn.night 🫠 the only thing that will get him back to sleep is milk. Any tips for how I can wean him off this habit? He goes to bed at 7.30/8pm, religiously wakes at 4-5am, then will generally go back down til 6.30/7am after milk. He eats enough during the day so I don’t think increasing his food intake is the answer.

He still only has a very small tummy and by that time, he's gone a long time without any food or water. He's hungry and/or thirsty.

8pm-5am is a pretty good stretch, normal night time sleep is 10-11 hours.
You could try sending dad in with a cup of water to resettle without milk but you may find he is up earlier.

If he’s 10.5m and reducing his daytime milk it’s likely he isn’t getting enough calories in the day.

solid food is less calorie dense, and they only have small stomachs so even though he eats solids well it won’t be the same calorie load as milk feeds. Milk should be the main source of nutrition until 1 year old.

so either suck it up knowing it’ll only be a few more months, and try to increase milk in the day, even if it means he reduces his solids. Try milk before each meal to get the calories into him. I had a timetable where it was milk on wake up, then breakfast, then milk around 11, lunch at 12, milk about 3 after nap, tea at 4 ish, then milk before bed.

alternative if you want to give up bf is to go cold turkey and keep offering formula until he takes it.

Don't offer formula or cows milk during the night, you'll just have to get him off that and it's not good dentally. Unfortunately you either keep going with it unless you have a specific reason to stop BF - I only feed at bedtime and at 4/5am, mine is 17 months - CBA to stop as it gets us more sleep! Or withhold it but be prepared for the baby to just stay awake from 4/5am, hopefully temporarily. He's doing a really good stretch overnight, and sleep pressure is so low by that time that is it always hard to resettle then.

He eats enough during the day so I don’t think increasing his food intake is the answer

Increasing daytime food intake (specifically a bigger dinner with pudding) was exactly what the HV told us to do to help DC sleep longer stretches at night. We were getting waking much earlier than 4 am though.

Could you do a dream feed before you go to bed in the evening? Might be enough to get him through till later in the morning. To avoid increasing your milk supply you could drop a daytime feed so you are still at 4 a day.