How to night wean a toddler (and get better sleep while breastfeeding).

 I’m a mom of 4 and I’ve breastfed, collectively, for a period of over seven years, I’ve night weaned 4 times.

The first time I night weaned, I did it after day weaning my oldest who as 2 years old at the time. It was a complete disaster that had us both in tears! (Day weaning, however, went well – I will do another post for tips on weaning in general.)

I learnt from my mistake with my first, and when I night weaned my second child, I did it when she was 22 months, 2 months before I day weaned. It was a much better experience.

My third child I night weaned at 14 months (I continued to breastfeed him in the day until he turned 2). I did it at this age because during this season of my life I was absolutely exhausted. I would have loved to have continued feeding him at night but I knew I would burn out. I believe that night weaning at this point allowed me just enough rest so that I could continue to breastfeed him in the day until he turned 2 years.

My fourth child was recently night weaned at 12 months. I still breastfeed him and plan to continue to do so, inshallah (God willing), until he turns 2 years. However, getting more sleep has made a huge difference to my life and my ability to function as a mom and person in general.

Over the years, I have learned a lot about night weaning – from reading books, chatting to other moms,  consulting with a baby sleep therapist and of course, my own experiences.

Here are my top tips for night weaning a breastfeeding toddler.

My method in a nutshell

I find it best to night wean well before day weaning. It’s much easier to be able to tell a baby (and console yourself) that they will still get milk (just at another time) than cutting them off completely.

The idea is to convey the message to your toddler that milk is no longer on offer at night, but will still be on offer during the day. A wonderful way to explain this (partially inspired by another mom) is to tell your toddler that “When the sun goes to sleep, and the birds go to sleep, the milk goes to sleep. When the sun wakes up and the birds wake up, the milk wakes up! “

Here's the steps I would follow at night:

1. I would give my toddler his/her last feed close to bedtime (but not feed to sleep). It might be dark at that stage already but I wouldn’t draw his attention to that.

2. When my toddler would wake up for the night, I would FIRST try to pat or rock to sleep, and sometimes offer water (or a pacifier if my baby took one – not all of my babies did).

3. If they requested milk, I would say “ Remember that when the sun and birds go to sleep, the milk goes to sleep. And that the milk wakes up when the sun and birds wake up. Let’s go see if the sun is awake.”

4. I would then pick up my child and walk to the window to look outside. I’d then say “Oh look, it’s dark outside. The sun is still sleeping! Can you hear any birds? (The hadedas go ‘da’, we can’t hear them.) No, they’re also sleeping. But can you see the moon and the stars?! Let’s look at them.”  (We would sometimes run through the list of bird sounds – a distraction technique).  

5. We’d stay at the window, there would sometimes be tears and crying (especially the first few nights), and my child would eventually fall asleep on my shoulder. Then we’d go back to bed ( I co-sleep).

6. Rinse and repeat.

A couple of things to note

If your baby wakes up often – this process can be EXHAUSTING, and it could take a few days to a couple of weeks for your child to adjust, so I have always scheduled night weaning during a time when we don’t have many other commitments (so that I could rest and be a zombie during this time). I suggest you do the same.

It's much easier to get someone else ( like your husband) to night wean your baby because if mom isn’t around the milk is just simply not on offer. If you have a volunteer who is willing to forgo night time sleep for a while and who your baby is close to - take them up on it! With our fourth child, my husband helped, and it was the easiest night weaning process (for me) by far.  It is, however, completely possible for you to night-wean your breastfed baby yourself without help from others, I’ve done it and you can too.

It’s tempting to offer your baby food when they wake up at night - and if they have a habit of breastfeeding a lot during the night, they probably are hungry! I’ve done this twice, but I believe that it simply draws the process out longer. My suggestion is to only offer water, and to make sure that your child is eating well during the day (see below).

You can take night weaning in stages – first delay feeds until 12am for a night or two. Then 1am, then 2 am etc. However, I think this sends mixed messages and draws out the night weaning process.

You can choose the time of your first morning feed. With some of my babies the first feed has been at 4am because they would wake up inconsolable and starving at that time. With others, they were able to be comforted and pulled through until 5:30am or 6am. In order to get the most possible sleep, I try to go to bed as early as I can.

I want to warn you that most likely, there will be crying. Maybe even screaming. This is hard on mom and baby. I’m not a fan of  the “cry it out” method, and it is important to note that this isn’t the cry it out method. During “cry it out” the baby is left alone to learn how to self-soothe. I would never do that. I do lots of cuddling, kissing, patting, soothing, rocking, comforting all the while standing firm on the message that milk will be there in the morning.

Supporting the Night Weaning Process

There were a number of things that I did in addition to the method I outline above, to help support the process of night weaning. You don’t have to do all of them, but doing at least some of them should help make the process easier.

1. A few weeks before I night weaned, I started drawing my baby’s attention to our surroundings outside – particularly the fact that during the daytime the sun was shining, in the morning the birds were chirping, and that at night the sun had set, the sky was dark, the moon and stars were out and the birds were silent. Our converstations would go something along the lines of this:

“Can you see the sun, my love? It is DAYTIME. The sun is AWAKE! The birds are AWAKE! Can you hear the birds? The hadedas go ‘DAAA’, the grey loeries go “GO AWAY. (etc)”

“Oh look, the sun is setting, the sky is getting orange, the sun is going to SLEEP! Can you see the sky? No more sun! The stars are shining, there is the moon. The birds are quiet, let’s listen to see if we can hear any.”

2. I would try to make sure that my baby was eating enough food in the day. The book Sleep Sense suggests that baby eat 5g (1 teaspoon) of protein for every kg of their weight. So if your baby weighs 10kg, he should be eating a total of ten teaspoons of protein spread out over the day ( 2 to 3 teaspoons per meal/snack). I found this a little tough to strictly adhere to (it’s a lot of food, 1 egg is only 5g of protein), so I used it as a guideline. I also found it easier to implement once night weaning was already underway, because not drinking milk at night led to the natural consequence of having a heftier appetite in the day.

3. I tried to get my babies into a good nap routine in the day, even if they’re sleeping at night, they still need good daytime sleep as well. I don’t follow a strict routine , but rather work on wake windows so our days look loosely the same (I found that the Taking Cara Babies monthly routines have been helpful as a rough guideline with baby number 4).

4. I developed consistent sleeping habits for my babies for bedtime/naptime. I have been reading baby sleep books from before my first child was born but it wasn’t until I started really understanding habits that I realised why the sleep books all insisted on bedtime and sleep routines (which I considered something of a nuisance before then).

The reason for it is this: habits operate on a level that is different to the conscious brain. If you repeat a certain behaviour enough times, certain pathways develop in your unconscious brain. Eventually when you have repeated these behaviours enough times, your brain sends cues to your body to automatically respond in a certain way.

So when you consistently take your baby to the same spot to sleep, sing the same song (or recite the same dua [prayer] or surah [verse of Quran]), give them the same blanket or snuggle toy, play the same white noise, hold them or rock them or place them in a certain way – those things automatically cue your baby to sleep whether they like it or not. You may still get patches of sleep resistance (especially if baby is not tired enough or overtired) but the sleep cues you are consistent with are still useful.  

5. I worked on getting my babies out of the habit of breastfeeding to sleep.

If your baby breastfeeds to sleep, this is probably one of their sleep cues. Before nightweaning my third, I worked to develop other sleep routines, moving breastfeeding to earlier in the evening or well before naps and then singing/tickling his back/cuddling to get him to sleep.

With my fourth baby I took the Taking Cara Babies newborn course and used a flexible routine from the time he was 4 weeks old, where he would feed directly upon waking from naps in the day (he would sleep, then feed upon waking, stay awake for his wake window, sleep and then feed again upon waking. I’d also feed on demand if he was hungry but by and large he would feed mostly every 3 hours).  (This course, unfortunately, didn’t get my baby sleeping through the night from young…but it did help me settle my baby easily and also helped me develop good routines and habits which made my days more predictable.)

6. I made sure that my baby was getting early morning sunlight outdoors and ideally late afternoon sunlight too. Being directly exposed to sunlight at these times in the day helps to set your body’s circadian rhythm. This is useful because our bodies and our babies’ bodies are exposed to things that disrupt circadian rhythm, like artificial light, blue light from screens etc.

7. I tried to make sure my baby was mentally stimulated in the day (lots of chatting, games, play).

8. I tried to ensure my baby was getting enough physical stimulation and movement in the day. Some sort of movement in the afternoon that engages the proprioceptive system is said to be particularly helpful – things like swinging on a swing or bouncing with your baby on an exercise ball.

9. I made sure that I was mentally and physically ready to night wean. I know that night weaning is a tiring process where I would get even less sleep for a few days or weeks. I needed enough mental and physical stamina to see the process through and not give in to the crying from exhaustion. I would make sure to schedule night weaning during a time when our calendar was clear and I was able to be a zombie for a few days or had extra support.

Conclusion

Night weaning has never been an easy process for me.

It can be tough to listen to and comfort a crying baby without breastfeeding, especially when that is your go-to soothing method. It is also tough for them to adjust to not having milk on tap all night long. It is, however, something that you have to do at some stage if you’re going to wean your baby (whether before or after 2 years old, the Islamic age to wean).

I still don’t always get full nights of sleep before my babies are 2 – my 1yr old still niggles especially when he is teething or going through a period of development. It’s important to realise that night weaning isn’t necessarily a magic bullet to sleeping through the night.

I do, however, get MUCH better sleep than before, even if it is interrupted, even if my days start at 4am. Alhamdulillah (Praise God). And for that, the process is worth it.

If you try any of my tips for night weaning , please leave a comment and let me know how it goes!

(If you'd like to learn about the method I use to fully wean my toddlers, I have a post about it HERE).