Is 8.5 months too younge to night wean?

[Mya's Mommy]

Hi Mamas. I can not really find any concrete info on when you can night wean. My DD is 8.5 months and 19 pounds. She is still up 4-8 times per night. On a really good night she'll wake 3 times to eat. She is not drinking much on some of the wakings (it's hard to remember by the morning), but her diaper is always FULL of pee by morning. We are cosleeping and BFing and she does eat solids (not a huge amount, but a little here and there). I want to transition her over to her crib and then night wean once she is comfortable in her crib, but I don't know if this will jeopordize her weight gain because she drinks so much at night? Cosleeping is no longer working well for us, I do not get a good nights sleep and can be VERY cranky with DD and DH in the morning. Also DD is crawling around the bed and can easily crawl over the bedrails and pillows. I do not want to put the mattress on the floor. Also DH has been sleeping in the spare room for 8 months now b/c we only have a queen size bed. Sorry so lengthy, but that's my whole story, so back to my question- is it safe to night wean at 8/5 months, 19 pounds? And how do I do it? I would even be happy to feed her once a night, but what time would I pick since she wakes so frequently? Thanks...

[sapphire_chan]

If we'd night-weaned at 8.5 months, Lina wouldn't have been nursing by 10 months. Between 8 and 11 months, aside from a few small snacks here and there ALL of her nursing was at night. My supply would've tanked without the nighttime nursing.

Since you're not doing well with how things are right now, how about first sidecarring her crib? Then you can be separate from her from sleeping, but she'll be close to hand when it's time to nurse.

Also, if she isn't eating much for some wakings, but she's got a really full diaper, she might be waking because she needs to pee and the nursing helps her through having an uncomfortable tummy. If she pops on and off the breast then it's definitely needing to pee that's waking her.

How long is she in bed? Lina generally needed to pee around 9pm, midnight, and 4am.

[SpunkyMama]

http://www.kathydettwyler.org/detsleepthrough.html

http://www.drjaygordon.com/development/ap/sleep.asp (thinks babies should be a year)

These two articles may help. I have a 15 mo old who still wakes 3-4x a night to nurse for just a short while. I was at a really cranky stage about 9/10 months because of all the nightwakings (8-12). We found that ds needed all cotton to sleep in (even his diapers). His nightwakings fell dramatically when we switched from Fuzzibunz to cotton prefolds. I also stopped counting (most nights) how many nighwakings there were, and we turned the clock off. We decided not to night wean because I had heard too many stories where the baby still woke up. I didn't to have one less tool to get him back down. 9 months is a time for a lot of development, too. Our ped suggested drinking some chamomile tea before bed. A little does get in the breastmilk, so it may help calm your dd, too.

If you decide to try and it feels wrong for you or your child you could try again later. Good luck!!

[CrunchyChristianMama]

I don't think it's too early to start the process. You may also find that after she transitions to the crib, she wakes less all on her own. Around that age my DD (who slept in her own crib) would just wake once to eat around 3 a.m. and did fine. The less she nursed at night, the more she nursed during the day. She also didn't really start eating anything substantial for solid food until she was over a year old.

[~Charlie's~Angel~]

8.5 months is WAY to young.

We are no longer nursing, but I still give my DS2 a bottle if he seems hungry, and hes 15 months. He was still nursing twice a night at 11 months, and getting a bottle once a night at 14 months. SO I guess you could say we are gradually night weaning him NOW.

[Llyra]

My DD1 nightweaned herself, early on, and STTN while cosleeping, which makes her the one-in-a-million kid. The other two, I nighweaned between 10 and 12 months (they're twins.) I did it because of ongoing serious medical problems, and my need to be away from them at night. I felt like I had no choice. For DD2, it was an easy transition-- she let go of the night nursing easily, and we had a joyful reunion first thing every morning that was the highlight of my day. But DS had a much harder time-- he was very clearly not ready, and the process involved a lot of crying and maybe even a little trauma. If I'd felt like I had any choice, I never would have done it. It was a drastic decision.

So my advice is-- you have to know your own child. Try limiting nighttime feedings a bit, maybe have your DH take the baby when she wakes a few times, and see how it goes. Be ready to backpedal if it's not working.
For us, I set a period of time in the night when I would not nurse. I started with between 1 and 2:30 am. Then I gradually expanded that time, until I was up to eight hours. That seemed like long enough at that age. If they woke during that no-nursing time, DH took them and rocked them or walked them around, or we offered a pacifier (DD2 took it, and DS didn't) or tried other soothing methods.

If she's really ready, it'll happen fairly easily. For my DD2, within a day or two, she'd stopped waking during the no-nursing time, and each time I lengthened the time, she only took a couple of days to adjust, and started nursing much more during the day to make up for it.

If it becomes a struggle, or baby is really miserable, or not sleeping, or overly clingy and unhappy during the day, you'll know then that it isn't working, and then maybe wait a few months more.

It sounds too like you might be ready for separate sleep arrangements. Maybe that's the first step. For some kids, once they start sleeping separately, they start waking much less anyway, which might solve your current problem without having to resort to nightweaning, which is a bit drastic at this age.

A sidecarred crib, a crib across the room from you, a pack-and-play next to your bed, are all arrangements you might consider. It can take time and patience to accustom baby to the new way, but if cosleeping is the real problem, and not specifically the nursing, this might help a lot.

[transylvania_mom]

I would say yes. I night weaned ds at 15 mo and it seemed a little early. He would sleep only attached at the breast, wouldn't care for cuddles and used to have full blown tantrums if I didn't let him suckle non-stop.
At this point, I would focus on how YOU could get more sleep. Nap when baby naps? Sleep in on week-ends? Have a baby sitter take the baby for a walk while you sleep?
Many hugs, I know how hard it is

PS: I'M in Ottawa too

[rzberrymom]

That seems *really* young to nightwean. Someone linked to the Dr. Jay Gordon article about nightweaning, but he doesn't recommend nightweaning such a young baby.

8 1/2 month is such a hard time since there's so much going on at once to disrupt sleep--teething, learning new skills (which often causes increased waking), the beginning of separation anxiety, growth spurts, etc. This article really helped me when everything got crazy at that age.

You could try the book the No Cry Sleep Solution--she has some ideas for cutting down the frequency of night nursing without actually nightweaning.

[Louisep]

I decided to wait until one year based on Jay Gordon's advice. But like pp suggested, I used a few things from NCSS and while it didn't cut down his wakings, it reduced the feeds. That might make it harder for you to get your LO back to sleep. FWIW, I don't think nightweaning made much impact on ds's wakings. I nightweaned eventually because nursing would not always work to get him back to sleep and I wanted dh to pitch in.

[mkksmom]

I say it doesn't have to be all or nothing. Feel her out a little. You could try other ways to sooth her at first for some of the wakings and see how it goes. If she really wants to nurse, then let her. Sometimes hse might surprise you and go back down without it, though. You could also do the NCSS thing where you remove the nipple just as she is dozing over and over until she learns she can fall asleep without the boob in her mouth. I always gave in if it got too frustrating at any point with my older one. My LO is only 5 months, but I doo rock her back to sleep if she seems like she'll go for it sometimes. Like if she just nursed an hour ago. But if she cries and shows that she only wants to nurse, I let her of course.