Night weaning..

[M&S+Bump]

I think I just need a bit of support, really. There's tons and tons of information all over t'interwebs about night-weaning an older bf baby - but apparently nobody else is trying to wean an 11-month old off their night-time bottles??

Am I just the only sucker who's been getting up 2-3 a night since forever (and actually considered myself lucky that it was down to just twice!) and expected the baby to drop them by himself when he was ready? Or is there other people out there too, going through this? #1 just stopped by himself at 8 months and slept through ever since, so this is all new to me

Last night was our first night in an organised attempt to get this sproglet to stop eating (and obviously therefore stop waking) through the night. I cut his bottles down to 2oz (usually has 8oz overnight between the two feeds) and refused to feed him any other times apart from the two he usually has, midnight-ish and 4-am - although I caved at 3am last night when he woke up as he'd already been up at 1.30am as well to scream the place down.

He still woke up after the 3am bottle as well but only to cry for a minute then presumably roll over and go back to sleep, then was up at his usual 7am.

I'm counting it as a success since he did actually sleep with half his usual amount of milk, even if he did wake up more often - just hoping it gets better very, very quickly as I'm a zombie today.

 

[kettle28]

I'm giving a dummy instead of bottle and only 1 in 4 nights had to feed. So still getting up but figure no feeding first step

 

[M&S+Bump]

I'm giving a dummy instead of bottle and only 1 in 4 nights had to feed. So still getting up but figure no feeding first step

I'd been doing that since we changed to FF at 14 weeks - always dummy first, but he would spit it out and continue screaming for milk, so I'd give in quite quickly as didn't want toddler waking up and having two to deal with!

We're a week in now - night 1 he had 2 x 2oz bottles and woke up an additional two times at least (so 4+ times in total). Night 2, he woke up a couple of times but only one 2oz bottle. Night 3, still woke up but no bottle. Night 4, woke up and had to give him 1.5oz as he wouldn't settle at all, but only woke once. Night 5, woke once for dummy. Night 6 - slept through!!!!!! Night 7, slept til 5am, dummy and then back to sleep til 7am. I can cope with 5am!

The only downside is that the nights he's not having a feed in the night, he's usually up at 6am - but this is my husband's problem, not mine since he's the one that gets up with them in the morning.

If I'd known how quick this was going to be and how toddler clearly sleeps through a bomb going off (cos it's involved a fair bit of screaming a couple of the nights) I'd have done it months ago.. I'm getting 4+ hours of sleep and feeling like a functional human being instead of a tearful zombie for the first time in over a year!

 

[kettle28]

aww, so pleased for you amazing the difference just a straight stretch of just 4 hours can make!

lo back to a night feed, but, has now started going down 7.30 - 7am, worse night up 7 times, best, in twice to feed.

one night he did 4 hours, feed, 5 hours!! was in heaven lol!