Help me with night weaning, ahhhh....

This is our second attempt at night weaning. We started first before easter and it was going great! She started sleeping for at least 5 hrs at a time and I wasn't feeding for 7 or more hrs overnight. Then we went away for a week at easter and things went bad with her sleep. It's really noisy at mum's and she doesn't like her bed much. We persisted for half the week and then decided to give up bc we weren't getting much sleep, and try again when we got home. Then she got a molar, so we only just started again last night.

Disastrous!! Maybe she's onto us now. She had her last feed at 9pm and then I wasn't going to feed her until at least 4am like we had done before (7hrs from last feed). She had lots to eat for dinner so she wasn't hungry. She woke at 12.30 and DH tried to resettle for an hr. Tried to put her down 5 times and she woke up. Then I tried for another hr. Didn't even get to try and put her down bc she never got properly asleep. She was upset and dropping the lip every time she looked at me :( She kept trying to put her hand down my top wanting boob. Then I went and layed in bed with her thinking she might just go to sleep with us instead of being rocked but she just cried and cried and got very upset :( And then I got upset bc she was so sad and it was my fault for not giving her what she wants. DH got up again and tried to resettle again. Then he came back after half an hr and said just to feed her, she hadn't even closed her eyes the whole time he was out there. So now it was 3.30am or something, before I was meant to feed her, but I fed her to calm her down and she went to sleep. Then she woke up at 4 and I tried not to feed her again but she got too upset and I eventually fed her again bc we were so tired. I think she woke about 7am again and I fed her. Now she's still sleeping, lucky her!!

So now we've probably just made it worse. She probably just thinks that if she protests for long enough I'll feed her. But she was actually upset and had tears :( We need to night wean because I don't have AF back and we would like to start TTC. I'm hoping just having a break from BF overnight will bring it back bc I won't wean completely just to have another baby. And we would also like more sleep. We have been waking up every 3 hrs (max) her entire life and we are TIRED!!!!!!!!

Does anyone have any tips for me?? If I don't feed her it feels like she'll stay up all night until I do!! She's done the same thing when we have tried before too. Will it get better?

Please help!! :grouphug:

Hey gorgeous

We are going through this at the moment too - but we are still co-sleeping.

Essentially I have decided to night wean and then get her into her cot/bed (who knows where at this stage). I am happy to let her have ONE feed overnight. When she has been stirring I just cuddle her really really tight and tell her "hush hush, mummy is here".... the first 3 nights or so it took her a few minutes to re-settle but for the past two nights she seems to have gotten used to it, twice she has slept from her middle of the night feed all the way till 7:30/8..... so we are getting there!

I guess they will all have varying amounts of time that it will take .... not sure if this is any help but we haven't actually completed it ourselves yet!

:hug:
First, these things take time.
Second, if she's teething or otherwise out of sorts it's going to be harder.
three, sometimes they just need it. It's ok to give it to them - you're not going backwards or making things worse. The overall progression toward your goal is important, not every little step forward or backward.

If you're going to do this, you need to give it a good 3-4 nights (at least) to see if she's adjusting. You might then want to reconsider your tactics. Maybe let her feed a little earlier than you were planning to for bit and stretch the proces out a bit longer.

Are you co-sleeping? You might find it easier if you're not physically there - let your DH resettle for the first half of the night. Then give her a feed when you take over and go back to sleep (either with you or separately, however seems to work better). You can then try pushing that feed back a little each night - hold out a little longer. By being with daddy for the first half of hte night and later and later feeds for the second half, she *might* learn to resettle other ways.

We did this (more or less) with DS. It took 2 weeks before he stopped askign for milk (and started asking for food!). The first couple of nights were ok, but nights 3-5 were pretty awful, then it gradually got better. I also told DS milk was sleeping at night time. I night weaned at around the same age for the same reasons.

Just be flexible with your plan, but you'll need to push through the worst of it in the next couple of nights. good luck.

:hug: its so hard isnt it? we were completely night weaned, but then E got sick, so I am back to a feed in the night again :doh:
I actually fed her by accident - I was half asleep and just brought her back to bed and fed her - she hadnt even asked for it! oops. my bad!

I have a couple of ideas - but firstly - does she feed to sleep at bedtime? If so then I would drop that first, so as to cut the feed/sleep association.

Ok, this idea is a bit out there - but if she is protesting (like last night) and she doesn't look like shes going to re-settle then maybe get her 'up' and go to the lounge, have a drink of water, look at a book, then try going back to bed? just to break it up, and its sort of like a 'reward' for not having a feed. :dunno: I remember doing this with D once when she wouldn't sleep, it seemed to work because she didn't expect it, it stopped the tears and then she was tired enough and calm enough to go back to sleep! I only did it once.

Anyway, hang in there - youre doing a great job. :hug:

Thanks guys!!

Yeah we cosleep the majority of the night. She goes into her cot (in our room) when she goes to sleep at the start of the night and then when she wakes I just bring her in with us and she stays there the rest of the night. Sometimes I think she wakes just to get in bed with us and then she's happy to snuggle up and sleep. However when we're trying night weaning she's been in her cot a lot more just coz we get up to resettle her and when she's asleep we just put her back in her cot. If we put her in bed next to me when she's asleep half the time she automatically rolls towards me and opens her mouth thinking she's going to get fed and then cries when she doesn't get it.

Maybe I should try just having her in our bed from the start tonight and see if that helps her to sleep longer while I'm night weaning bc sometimes in our bed she wakes up a little, rolls around, and then goes back to sleep by herself when she knows we're there. She NEVER does that in her cot. Of course it could go the other way and make her want to feed more, but I'll try. I have been wearing a top too so my boobs aren't tempting her all night, rofl.

She does feed to sleep at bed time and for her day nap(s) too. I will stop the feeding to sleep at night and see if it helps, thanks, I didn't think of that! I will just rock her to sleep. She doesn't self settle! Although sometimes if I feed her to just sleepy she will roll around and if I pat her she will go to sleep, depends on how tired she is and her mood. So I'll remember to do that instead of feeding to completely asleep.

I told DH about the idea of he does the first half of the night and then I feed and we get some sleep and he's happy to do that. Then we'll just stretch it out. Thank God for DH!

SS- I thought of getting her up last night bc I didn't know what else to do, she just wasn't sleeping!! But I was worried it might make it worse but I doubt it would unless I was doing it every night hey! I couldn't think clearly at 2am, LOL.

I'm also just going to give her 1 sleep a day instead of two. She either has 1 or 2. She is fine with 1 but I can always get her to have 2 if I want to and I tend to do that if we're home all day bc then I get more time to myself and I'm tired from the night before. So I'm going to get out more doing things and give her only 1 nap. She sleeps a little better only having had 1 nap.

It's just nice to hear from others they've done the same thing and it will hopefully get better. Coz even though I know I want to do it and it's reasonable to expect her not to feed for that amount of time at her age it's a bit upsetting in the middle of the night when she's so sad and upset and I know it's bc I'm doing it to her for my own selfish reasons and I could so easily fix it :(

I feel better now I have some more ideas and a bit of a better plan.

Thank you all!

That's great your DH is supportive! Hope things work out.
I think mixing things up a bit is a good idea - helps you to figure out different strategies that work at different times.

Do you give your DD cow's milk? DD has cut her feeds right back, but when she does wake up at night looking for a drink (and she's not sick or teething) then I warm up some cows milk and give her a drink of that, a cuddle, a bit of a rock and she's back to land of nod in no time. Just something else to try if you need to :hug: you're doing great and your DD wont be feeding overnight for ever. :hug:

as you know we had some success with jay gordan advice, DD is feeding once a night and im hppy with that for the moment :hug:

We went through this too. I agree- don't worry about the nights when it all goes pear shaped, just try again the next night.

Our son started in the cot then came into our bed too. I started just letting him have cuddles instead of milk and he wasn't happy at first. We offered water, cup of milk, banana and rice cakes in bed but no milk from mummy. Sometimes he cried so much I just cuddled him for a while but sometimes he took some water, milk or food. If he got really distressed then I fed him but then I would try not to feed him later in the evening. My plan was to cut down to one night feed (from 2-3 feeds) so I generally aimed for that to be after midnight. Then I fed him whenever he woke in the morning after 5am than again on real wake up at about 7am (but sometimes I was able to skip the 7am one and just get up with him). It only took a little while and he stopped asking for the midnight one and starting sleeping!!!! So I was just doing the 2 morning feeds till soon he dropped the 5am one too. At around the same time he dropped to one day sleep so I was only feeding him once in the day too.

Once I was down to four feeds a day (morning, day sleep, evening and once overnight) I got my period back and I fell pregnant while still BFing but then he weaned because he didn't like my milk anymore I guess.

hun did you do the jay gordan thing last time??

how are things going hun??

Thanks guys!

Yeah we did do the Jay Gordon thing last time, sort of, adjusted a bit to suit us, very gradually. But this time we sort of went just straight into it. We are not feeding for part of the night and also with the other feeds I'm taking her off before she's completely asleep. This worked well last night with the feeds she had, she had a little 30 second whinge and then rolled around a bit and went to sleep herself in a couple of minutes. So maybe not doing it so gradually has made it a lot harder. I didn't think it would make a difference bc last time I was wondering if I was just confusing her with the JG stuff. Obviously not! But we've started now and it's getting easier so we'll just continue.

The last 2 nights have not been as bad!! She hasn't done the same thing where she's been up for hours on end refusing to go back to sleep!! We cut it back to not feeding for a minimum of 5 hrs and tonight we're increasing it to 6. Last night she slept for almost 5 hrs straight up which is great for her! Then she woke and it took DH 45mins and 3 attampts but he got her back down without a feed. She was very angry! lol. Not upset like the first night but more of an angry yell like she knows what's going on and she's not happy!! But she is getting used to it. Then she only slept for 30mins and woke again and I fed her bc it had been long enough and I was happy that she had actually gone down for a bit without a feed.

But the rest of the night was shocking! She made up for it by feeding every hr for the last 4 hrs! So I'm not sure what to do about that? Just keep going and extending the time?? I'm not sure if it defeats the purpose by feeding her that much in the second half of the night and if I should maybe limit it to 1 feed a night and not feed her again til 7am or something. Any ideas??

Thanks guys! At least it's not as bad as the first night. And luckily I have DH to settle her and she's not screaming at me for booby!

we went straight into it, though modified as we dont co sleep, yep they get angry dont they :( for us it got better after about 8 or so nights, it was hard. she started to sleep longer, our rule is to resettle before 4am but feed after that time, she wakes anytime from 3.30am onwards currently so i feed as i cant be bothered arguing!, im hoping overtime she'll drop that feed.
DH has more success resettling as she thinks im going to feed her.

the otehr thing to do is to get onto the jay gordan website and scroll down in the night weaing area and you can post questions! a lady named Cheryl will answer your question

:hug: Heaven, this is a toughie, isn't it.

I night weaned DD, but TBH she was a little bit older than your DD. For some reason, at about your DD's age for a few months she suddenly increased her need for bfing overnight. In our case it might have had something to do with the fact that as DD was becoming more independent during the day (and spending a couple of afternoons which soon became a day with her godmother) she needed to reconnect with me at night.

It sounds like you are ready to night wean, because of TTC, but she might not be just yet. You're feeling guilty because you think you're pushing her, etc, etc. Night weaning to try to give her a brother or sister is a wonderful blessing for her, one that she will have for most of her life! Don't beat yourself up over it.

I would hesitate to drop the night feed before bed. If she does need a feed nutritionally, or to wind down (which was definitely the case in our household), it might make it harder to put her to bed in the first place. Plus, it disrupts her routine even further.

I told my DD that boobies were asleep while it was night and we had a drink of water by the bed instead. If she was thirsty, that was enough. If she wants comfort, lots of cuddles. I'm not so sure about getting up to warm up milk, etc, sounds like that might be more disruptive to your sleep than just bfing back to sleep! It took a good few days of DD being very definitely unimpressed with the lack of bbs before she asked for and expected water. She still asked occasionally afterwards, but was settled pretty readily. She was 16-17 mths at the time. Another thing I did was to convert her cot to a junior bed so she could come into us when she woke (my DD wasn't good at resettling on her own in the middle of the night either).

:hug: hun. I hope you figure out a balance that works for you and your family!

Thankyou girls!

We have seen some improvement!! Last night she slept for 5 hrs straight up!! That is awesome for her! She rarely goes for more than 3hrs at a time. Then she only woke once after that. I can't remember the last time she only woke twice at night!! lol.

And guess what!! I just got AF!! Didn't take much, LOL. Must have been when we tried to night wean a few weeks ago. Looks like that was enough to get it back! DD is still having 5-7 feeds in 24hrs, lol. I was a bit worried bc my mum said she never got AF back until her kids were completely weaned (at 1 yr) even though they were only on one feed a day for a while before that. So that takes some of the stress off that we HAVE to do it now iykwim.

good news!

Hooray! Yay for af! I was just reading this thread because I STILL haven't got mine and we're desperate to ttc.

I just wanted to suggest feeding her to sleep in your bed and keeping her there, then when she stirs I cuddle her and only feed if she gets worked up. We started doing this about a month ago and she now does 8-10 hour stretches and some nights 12!!! Still no AF though.
:hug: hope it gets better for you.

Thanks anna. I do usually feed her to sleep in our bed. Well, I haven't been feeding until she's totally asleep anymore. But then I move her to her cot bc I don't want to go to bed when she does and I'm scared she'll fall out! lol. I have tried just cuddling before and that sometimes works. I think I will try that in the second half of the night instead of feeding her so much! Then if she gets too worked up at least it's during the time I can feed her anyway, lol.

that's great news heaven! 5 hours is awesome! (gosh, i hope that doesn't sound sarcastic? i'm absolutely serious - you give me such hope that it will one day be possible to get more than 2 hours sleep!!)

UPDATE!

Going well! She's only waking up once or twice a night now, big change!! She seemed to get the idea quicker than expected! We had a setback last week when she was teething badly and I just started feeding back to sleep because I thought she needed it for comfort and pain relief. Thought that would really wreck things and we'd have to start again but it didn't!! When she felt better she just went back to her normal routine!! Last night she slept for 6.5hrs straight up :D

yay! :confetti:

Yay!! So pleased it's working for you and you have still been able to be flexible when you felt she needed it.