Has anyone weaned baby from night-nursing and has it helped with sleep issues?

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rumnyc

Registered User
Hi there, I have an almost 14 month old who has basically not been a good sleeper since he was 5 months old. He's still nursing and won't take a bottle and wakes up at night every 1.5-2 hrs to nurse. I've tried co-sleeping, carrying, rocking, leaving him in his cot for certain lengths of time but to no avail. All he wants is breast and if he doesn't get it, he simply won't fall back asleep. Up until now, I went with it but at this point, I pretty much know he's not hungry but mostly just pacifies. Not to mention how sleep-deprived I am after all these months. I don't want to stop nursing but I want to stop night-nursing esp because I hear that night weaning often naturally leads to better sleep patterns.

Has anyone had similar experiences with night-weaning? If so, please share and offer any tips or advice you think might be handy. This will obviously involve some tears and sleepless weeks, so any advice is appreciated. I'm sick of reading sleep books which make useless suggestions like dark room and calm and quite atmosphere and sleep routine etc., - because I've got them down to the last detail. Some have suggested using bitter substances on the nipple at night but I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that kinda stuff, esp 'cause I'm not trying to wean him off the breast completely. I also know that most people think that night-weaning is best done if daddy goes in for the wakings for the first few nights, but a) we tried it once before, it worked well for a few nights but as soon as my husband stopped going in because of work the next day and I started going back in, my son started waking up frequently again and b) he has recently learnt to scream and now if my husband or helper goes in, he screams for a half hour to an hour which absolutely wears everyone down. :crib:

So, ladies...help!
 
BOTH my girls loved the "comfort nurse in the middle of the night" - but fortunately for me, it was only usually once per night. My oldest started it at 7 months and woke EVERY night until I forcibly night weaned her at 15 months old. My youngest never slept through until I night weaned her at about 8 months (from memory). What I did with both of them was to offer water instead of milk. Of course they were not happy and had a couple of nights of protesting - but once they learned that they would only be getting water and not milk, they stopped waking up. I found that offering them water meant that they could at least have SOMETHING rather than just not giving them anything... you could try that, but it's not going to solve all the problems in one day...
 
thanks nicolejoy. at least it's good to hear that night weaning - although hard - did lead to good sleeping in the case of both your kids. that, to me, is reassuring. did you offer them water in a bottle? my baby doesn't drink from a bottle but i suppose i could offer in the straw cup he drinks from...not sure if that would work...also, when you stopped offering the breast, did you feel like you had to carry or rock them more in order to compensate or were you just able to pat them back down to sleep?
 
My son would wake up every 2 hours for milk (formula from a bottle until he was 2 years old) so I diluted the milk with water and started increasing the ratio of water to milk. So first night, the bottle had 80 percent milk and 20 percent water, the next night I diluted 50-50 and so on until he could have only water. The torture lasted about a week and his sleeping pattern improved quite a bit.

Hope this helps.
 
My first baby was fully breastfed so I offered water in a straw cup (didn't want to introduce a bottle at 15 months old!!)

My 2nd was bottle fed so I gave water in a bottle. The good thing about bottle feeding it is that you could dilute the milk slowly instead.

You could also theoretically offer breastmilk in a bottle instead and see if that works too.... but that's a lot extra work - I wouldn't want to dilute breastmilk either, it seems too precious!!
 
Oh sorry, just noticed your other questions... at first it WAS harder to get them back to sleep without nursing/giving milk - but it was so worth it after the first week...
 
thanks nicolejoy. so i've gone 4 nights now without nursing him. interestingly he hasn't screamed for the breast, though he reaches for it at times and arches his back in protest. but i'm usually able to hold or rock him back to sleep within 5-10 minutes. he doesn't seem to want the water from the straw cup, though i keep it and offer it anyway. but he's still waking up every 2 hours. i'm getting worried that now he's waking up to be rocked instead of nursed. what do i do?!
 
I'm not an expert by any means, but my theory was "gradually reduce" - so if he's waking to be rocked, can you rock him less? or rock til NEARLY asleep, and then put him down? Or pat his back instead of rocking? That's what I would try... hang in there, it does get better!!
 
In our house where both parents are out of the house during the day for work, it was a combination of getting the helper to help out and daddy sharing equal night duty with mommy. It seems that having daddy go in and do the re-settling at night worked well. If he's not having to stay up for hours at a time to do it, doing that for a few weeks until your child gets the message that breastfeeding at night is no longer an option is probably a good way to go. That's kind of what being a parent is about--whether you have to work or not sometimes you're not going to get fantastic sleep. I would go with what worked to begin with--get daddy back in the game on a regular basis.
 
i'm not really sure what's going on anymore. i feel like things are getting worse. he's waking up more frequently since last night. i've been letting him cry for a few min at a time before i go in but so far it hasn't helped. i don't know why it's getting worse instead of better? i am miserable.
 
I have a 16 month old daughter who's never been a good sleeper and she has to suck to sleep. We co-sleep and she never took the cot from day 1. My weaning process was I dropped off the night feed first then gradually the afternoon feed. I figured it will be a slow painful process, so started this around 13 months. She's fully weaned at 15 months.

It was long & hard in the first few weeks. She just wanted to suck but I just lie down with her. Pat her back, talk to her, carry her, tried rocking but never offer the breast. Each time if she cry uncontrollably we will bring her to the living room, calm her down and after she stops, we start all over again. It took 2-3 hrs each night for her to sleep. There were times I just wanted to give in as it is quite draining but my husband encouraged me to persevere.

By week 3, we had a routine and she got it or perhaps gave in. Lights off and go to bed obediently. We thought we did it!! Then a few days later, she fell ill and had a breakout of rash (I accidentally gave her eggs - she is allergic to egg white!), we were back to square 1! She cried/scream each night when its bedtime. To the point, she will not sleep on the bed or enter the room. So, for at least 2 weeks, we slept in the living room - on the mat or on the sofa, depending on what she wants. We found out later, she was also teething (molars).

Anyway, we went away for 2 weeks and since we came back, touch wood she has been very obediently going to bed willingly. However, the cue for her/us is we say good night to everyone including the helper. One thing did change though, she now wants a bottle of milk right before she sleep on the bed - I guess this to her is like sucking to help her sleep.

Hope that helps and good luck. Like everyone says... it will only get better!
 
Hi! I thought I was the only one with this problem. I haven't had a good night sleep for nearly 15 months. We share a very similar case here only that I'm not very persistent in feeding my boy with water during the night because he would definitely push the cup away. But what I do is that I feed him as much as possible before he sleeps and then I give him some water just after his last feed; then he can sleep for 3-4 hours at the very beginning before waking up every 1.5-2hrs for the breast. And as soon as he sleeps, maybe half an hour to an hour later I will sleep as well; this is where I get most of my sleep from.

Well I do hope that your babe will night-wean asap. Likewise same for me and any other mums who share the same problem here.

Good Luck!!!
 
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