How And When To Night Wean a Breastfed Baby

Charlotte Evans
2 days ago
3 min read

Night weaning is the process of removing a night time milk feed from your baby’s routine, with the objective of getting longer stretches of sleep overnight.

Night weaning usually happens when a baby is waking up multiple times in the night for a breastfeed, but the parents believe these wakes are becoming habitual rather than for genuine calorific need.

When should I think about night weaning?

For both breastfed and bottle fed babies, you can think about night weaning from 6 months old. Once your baby is well established with weaning onto solids and is doing well on the growth chart, you can be confident that any night wakes - certainly those in the first part of the night - are habitual rather than hunger,

Between 6 - 8 months you may choose to still keep one night feed around 4am to help your little one sustain themselves until their morning feed or breakfast.

It is biologically normal for babies to wake until they are around 12 months old - it’s a survival mechanism - but the need for the breast or bottle starts to drop once solid weaning is established.

How should I start night weaning?

Whether your baby is breastfed or bottle fed, the options for night weaning will be the same. The process of night weaning involves dropping night time milk feeds from your baby’s overnight routine - some parents choose to do this ‘cold turkey’ and drop them all at once, whereas others prefer a more gradual approach.

The cold turkey approach

If your lack of overnight sleep is starting to affect your life, or if you have a big milestone coming up that means you want to resolve sleep disturbances quickly (e.g. returning to work), then this approach may be best for you.

This approach involves weaning away all night feeds for your baby on night one, and using an age appropriate method to settle them back to sleep when they wake at their usual time during the night.

This approach will feel quite brutal for the first few days while your baby gets used to the new approach, but you are likely to see results quicker than a more gradual approach.

The gradual approach

If your baby is waking just once or twice in the night, or you are happy to take a little more time to wean the night feeds, this option is best for you.

With this approach you can either still feed your baby at their usual time but reduce the amount of milk they are getting over 3-4 nights, until they aren’t really having anything, and settle them back to sleep with an age appropriate method.

Or you can wean that first feed straight away on night one, using a settling method to get them back to sleep instead, but still offer the second feed as usual. After 3-4 nights of this the first feed should have been dropped and you can then work to wean away the second feed, and so on.

This gradual approach is effective for both bottle and breastfed babies.