My plan to wean the night feeds

[kelebek]

I am after your advice, help and support. DS is just over 18mnths and I am proud to still be bf We currently feed once through the day (unless he is sick) once just before bed but two or 3 times overnight

He will wake from about midnight and I then go sleep with him and feed him back to sleep. I have always said I would follow his lead but never seriously thought he would still be feeding at 18 mnths as my sister fed her DS until 13 mnths and that was the longest in my family.

So dp is going away for 2 nights in a week or so and I plan on using this time to encourage him to drop these feeds.

I am going to make sure he is well and he is not too upset from teething as he has just got his 2nd molar through and the first hasn't finished. I have thought of just cuddling him back to sleep and if that doesn't work giving him a bottle of water.

Am I missing something? I don't really want to introduce a bottle but don't want to risk spilling water on him from a cup. Is it mean/wrong to want to wean these feeds?

If you got this far thankyou.

[kelebek]

[maybe baby]

I can't really give advice as DD gave up night feedings by 10 weeks and DS by 6 months! But I think its fine to do if you are ready for it. Its not a food thing - its a comfort thing

[thepixie]

I'm a bit in the same boat with my DD who is 13 months.... unfortunately she just cries/ screams till she gets the boobie I have tried cuddling. but good luck, I completely understand and support you 100%. I know it has worked for others on here so hopefully they will drop in with some tips. GL

[MrsFabuloso]

I have found that if I feed DS more in the day time, he's less likely to wake much or at all in the night. Maybe introduce another day feed if you can?

[onthefly]

Finally biting the bullet, hey?
First up, I would say that you need to be really, really ready for this. The first few nights are going to rough.
Second, you might find it's easiest to stop the feeding by getting your DH to settle him in the night. or else finding some other way to settle him - ie, cuddles might seem too much like a prelude to bf to start with. Eg, I had to jump from bf-to-sleep to standing up & singing before returning to lying down together.

The advantage of doing it at this age is that he is old enough that you might be able to strike some sort of deal with him in regards to feeding - ie, extra during the day and none at night or something like that.

I've posted about this before, but we night-weaned DS at 14 months. He was so very angry and screamed his head off at first. DH went to him all night the first couple of nights, then needed a break, so I took over half way through the night for the next few nights and just held out as long as I could before feeding him, until eventually he was falling asleep from sheer exhaustion then having his feed at wakeup time. It took probably 2 weeks before he stopped asking for it altogether. He hasn't stopped waking up, btw

Good luck!

[~Kaz~]

Hey I am not up to this point yet so feel free to dismiss this as coming from someone without any IRL experience but could you try feeding him for less time to start with? So if his feeds normally go for 10mins, just keep your eye on the time and drop it down a minute or two every few days until he's only feeding for a minute or two. It might be easier to have him accept a cuddle in place of a very short feed.

Dunno, just an idea. Good luck whatever you decide to do.

[Snacks]

Maybe Jennifer13 might pop in here... When she night-weaned her DD she told her that the boobs were asleep I think its cute!

[~clover~]

Hi hun. Offering my full support.

I'm trying to con Jesse out of night feeds too. He has anywhere from one to two, but the first (middle of the night) is really hard. He's decided that after this one he doesn't want to let go & if I let him do it on his own he'll end up rolling over or something & it'll end up just being dragged out...teeth & all. Its getting painful & scary to do this one feed!

Once I managed to get him to roll around to sleep & I've tried rubbing his back, but after a while its pretty clear he doesn't want to settle, so I give in... Then spend 10 - 20 minutes trying to convince him to let go, tickling his chin, saying 'let go', 'off boo now'... Eventually it usually works.

Steer clear of bottles & pop tops. Try to keep the sippy thing on a cup as flat as possible & only ever water...go through my FB pics & look at Bri's teeth. Pop tops. I only finally got her completely off them about 6 months ago.

Its gonna be hard. Make sure you catch up on sleep through the days & you should be able to do it
GL hun xx