She's 13 months, how did you night wean?
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We got to the point where I would have my husband put DD to bed and then go in every time she woke up. But truthfully, she didn't STTN until she was fully weaned at about 14.5 months.
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I night weaned in between 12-13 months. We bedshare, so it's a little different, but you could use similar methods. I started by setting a time cut off - 3 am to start, which I moved to 4 after a few days, then 5, and so on to wake up. I would not nurse before that time no matter what. When she would wake up I would rub her back, sing to her, cuddle her, anything to soothe except nursing. Sometimes offering water helped. Not going to lie, the first two weeks were ROUGH. She was used to nursing a LOT at night, and it always put her back to sleep. During those two weeks she would sometimes be up for up to two hours. It got better though! She went from waking 3+ times a night (most nights way more) to just once, sometimes twice. By 15 months she was STTN.
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We did it earlier, but we just cut down on the amount of food we gave her until it was just a few sips, then it was just...nothing but soothing or a paci. I imagine BFing would work the same way
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@blackbird: I know you sleep trained around 6 months (creeper, sorry) but did weaning get her sleeping through the night?
Our LO is 6 months (and FF) and usually eats once in the MOTN. He gets a bottle around 1am - 6oz. Wondering if he's too young to wean or if I should try. Sorry to threadjack, OP.
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We did sleep training at 12 months
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@lamariniere: I am sooo hoping weaning is what finally gets both my LOs sleeping consistently through the night!
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@Littlebit: We did! I think the sleep training got her to wean. We had a few nights where she fell asleep without finishing a bottle so we were like,.....well, let's just offer half a bottle. So first it was a 4 oz bottle. Then a 2 oz bottle. Then 1 oz....But she had STTN probably twice at like...5.5 months in her magic merlin. So we just made sure to top her off before bed and when we sleep trained her, we tried to just get away with a pacifier for those wake ups. It was fine--we never really had to offer food again! I know they say a lot of babies need to eat in the MOTN at 6 months, but mine didn't seem to need to and I was happy to sleep, heh.
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@blackbird: Thank you! He's slept through the night a handful of times, so I know he can do it. I think he's waking out of habit these days..so I think I'm going to try to back down his bottles.
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@Littlebit: that's a good sign!! It worked really well for us, so I hope you have a similar life changing outcome!
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We finally night weaned a couple weeks ago. I just stopped going in when he woke up in the middle of the night and sent my husband in. I tried different methods that I found online and nothing worked.
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We tried shortening motn nursing sessions but that was a big fat fail- she got so worked up when I cut her off early. So I had to wait for her to mostly night wean herself. If I wasn't going to nurse, I just couldn't enter the room at all, Dh had to do it. If I was there she wanted milk and nothing but milk.
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DH started handling early wakeups (before 2:00 or so) at about 13 mo. A few months later we pushed it to 6:00.
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I did it at 17 months... LO was mostly co-sleeping and nursing on demand, but before the actual weaning I started by popping him off the boob when he seemed done eating and having him fall asleep without it (no more nursing until after he had slept). That was helpful in cutting down on wake-ups for a while but it didn't last and I needed more rest. We got a book (Nursies When the Sun Shines) and read that together for a while, and then just stopped nursing after the bedtime session (until 6 am). He still gets cuddled back to sleep when he wakes up during the nighttime. If he's in our bed this doesn't happen much, but when we transfer him to his own bed it's usually a couple times a night still (a month later). The first week was really rough and he can still get pretty mad when he's up at 5 or 5:30 and I won't nurse him! He used to nurse back to sleep until 7 or so, but now he's basically just nursing from 6 to 7.
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Mine was exactly that age, and she was wanting to nurse once or twice a night, for an hour or more each time. I hit my limit, and we just sent daddy down one night instead of me. She cried for ten minutes, that was it, and she never nursed overnight again. We got lucky, I think - she was clearly ready, so it was easy.
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