Weaning Night Feedings

Is your baby waking up many times in the night, feeding every 1-3 hours? Or are you struggling to drop night feedings even when you know they don’t need them?

This can be very exhausting and neither you or your baby are getting a good night’s sleep. If your baby is under 4 months old, I do not suggest sleep-training yet. However, you can start to develop good sleep habits at this age . Download my free Newborn Survival Guide which will help you. After 4 months of age you can begin sleep training, picking a sleep technique that works for you and your baby. 

If your baby is falling asleep while breastfeeding, they may have a hard time falling back to sleep on their own and, after one sleep cycle, will cry to get you to nurse them back to sleep in the night. If your baby is being rocked to sleep, that can also cause them to wake up more in the night making it seem like they need to be fed when really they just need help falling back to sleep. 

If your baby needs to be rocked or nursed to sleep they may wake up multiple times in the night because they need help to get back to sleep, not necessarily because they are hungry. The best thing is to start sleep training, teaching them how to fall asleep independently, so they are able to put themselves back to sleep as well. 

Once sleep training is established and they are able to fall asleep independently, you may notice that, they will wake up less or even sleep through the night. If they are still waking up for feedings in the night, you can start to wean feedings at appropriate ages. (It is common for babies to still need one night feeding up to 6 months old.)

If your baby is under 4 months old, you can still use these strategies to wean night feedings. When they wake up in the night, try to offer support and help them back to sleep first before offering a feed.

When your baby wakes up and does need a feeding, you want to make sure that they are fully awake, having a good long feeding and that they’re not falling back to sleep on the breast. If your baby is only feeding for a few minutes, then falling back to sleep, they probably didn’t need that feeding. They could be just using you to fall back to sleep. Making sure they have good long feedings will help them to sleep longer so they don’t need to wake up to feed as soon. After the feeding, make sure to put your baby back down in the crib fully awake (or eyes open) so they are falling back to sleep on their own. This will help ensure they know they are in the crib, are self soothing able to put themselves back to sleep in the night.

One way to look at nursing or rocking your baby to sleep:

Imagine falling asleep in your nice cozy bed, then wake up and you’re sleeping in someone else’s room, totally confused how you got there. You may have a hard time falling back to sleep and wish you were in the comfort of your own bed.

This is the same for your baby. Imagine, if you were a baby, falling sleeping in mommy’s arms, cozy and warm. Then waking up in your crib, alone and no longer being snuggled. They would also wake up startled and confused, making it very hard for them to fall back to sleep, even if they knew how. They will cry and want to be rocked or nursed back to sleep, leaving you both feeling sleep deprived. 

Once you help your baby to learn the skills of self-soothing, they will be able to fall asleep on their own and fall back to sleep in the night. Once your baby has learned to sleep independently they will actually prefer to sleep in their crib and have a better sleep because of it, as will you.

If your baby is struggling to fall asleep independently, I would still suggest putting your baby down in more of a drowsy state, and offer assistance as needed to help your baby fall back to sleep.

How to start:

First off, in order to wean night feedings, you need to make sure your baby is drinking enough milk (calories) in the daytime so that they do not need feedings at night.

If your baby is able to go 3-4 hours in the day without a feeding then they can do this in the night. 

You will first start with weaning the middle feeding, then the first feeding then the last feeding. If you are down to two feedings in the night, work on the first feeding then the last feeding, as it is harder to drop. 

Breastfed babies:

*Decrease the feeding by one-two minutes every 1-2 nights until that feeding is about 4 minutes long. Then you can drop that feeding completely. If your baby is still waking up at this time, use your preferred sleep-training technique to get them to fall back to sleep. 

Bottle fed babies

*Decrease the feeding by 0.5 ounces every night until you are down to two-three ounces. Then, when your baby wakes up the next night, you are going to use your sleep-training technique until your baby falls back to sleep. 

Times of feedings:

If you are feeding 3 times a night (typically this is for 4 months or younger,) they will happen at 7:00pm, 10:00pm, 1:00am, 4:00am, then 7:00am. You will wean the 10:00 am feeding first, then push to the 2 feeding schedule.

If you are feeding 2 times a night, the feedings should be between 11-12am and 3-4am. If your baby wakes up before this, try to help them back to sleep before offering a feeding. Once you are weaning the feeding, you will need to make sure it is between these times. The last couple days of weaning, you can push past these times to help them learn to sleep a bit longer and not create a habit of this wake up time.

Example: feed at 12:00am, then the next time do 12:15am, then 12:30am, then 12:45am, then you will push to one feeding the following night between 2-4am.

If you are struggling with Sleep-Training or cutting night-time feedings, send me a message and we can get started on getting you and your baby some sleep.