Dropping the Night Feed

[Marn209]

My LO is 9.5 months and wakes up once in the middle of the night (typically between 130-230) to nurse.  He goes to bed at 7pm, and gets up for the day between 5:45am and 6:30am.  I would like to try and start weaning him from the night feed.  He can fall asleep on his own, does not need to nurse to sleep, but I am not convinced that he is actually hungry when he wakes up in the night, just has almost started to make a habit of it.  I have read a few of the "stickies" of lowering the bottle amounts and adding water, but I am not sure what changes if you nurse and don't give a bottle.  Do we have to just go cold turkey? Thanks for the help!

[katie80]

Hi there, no you don't have to just to cold turkey. You can reduce the number of min you nurse him over the course of several days and try to add any extra milk or calories that you can to his day. Do you currently offer both breasts at the feeding?  I'd start by just offering one and then after a few days, stopping him a min earlier every few days until you get to something pretty quick (3-4min). If he's still waking at that point, you can try to resettle him without nursing or use wake-to-sleep to get him past the habitual wake. How do I address habitual wakings?  (wake-to-sleep and other methods)

HTH!