How to wean your baby from night feeds

Sooner or later each mum is thinking about how to stop breastfeeding.

The kid has grown up, can bite often, he eats adult food for himself, and there is not so much milk anymore.

Weaning always requires the willingness of both parties.

Signs of a baby's willingness to wean:

• age is more than 1 year;
• food interest, the ability to chew and eat "adult" food;
• the ability to calm down without a breast;
• normal physical and emotional well-being, absence of significant stress.

Signs of readiness from the mother:

• feeding experience more than 1 year;
• personal desire to stop feeding, not imposed from the outside.

Remember that weaning your baby between 1 and 2 years old can be very difficult.

The child already knows well what he wants and how to achieve it, but the mother is still under the influence of hormones and easily makes concessions to him.

The hardest part is weaning your baby from night feeds, especially if you practice sleeping together. With the breast, the child quickly falls asleep, calms down, the mother practically does not have to wake up at night. Nevertheless, there comes a time when you want to finally move the baby to a separate bed and sleep peacefully.

Basic principles of weaning at night

1. Do not traumatize the child's psyche. Leaving a baby with grandparents and just leaving is a huge stress for you, your baby, and your breast.

Leave it as a last resort, when milk is really not enough, and you can't go to bed without breast at all.

2. Introduce relatives. Let dad or grandmother put the child to sleep at night.

And at first, they will have to soothe and carry it in their arms at night during awakenings, because if mom does this, then it is easier for her to give up and give a breast than to listen to this cry.

3. Don't hurt yourself. You don't need any tugs, pills to stop lactation, or anything else.

If you survive at least one night without feeding, then in the morning express some milk to relieve the condition of the breast, and then it will come less and less if you do not feed.

4. Get ready mentally. Decide if you really want to wean the baby. If, for example, there is almost no milk and you do not see the point in these feedings, it is unpleasant or painful for you, then make your final decision, but get ready that several nights may become sleepless.

If you are not sure what you want to excommunicate, or are not sure if you are ready to temporarily sacrifice your sleep, just wait some more, take your time.

5. Reduce feeding time before bed. Give breast only for a certain period of time, contracting it every day. For example, feed while you sing a lullaby or recite a rhyme. The song ended - they removed the chest. And then we distract the child in some other way.

6. Change your bedtime rituals. If earlier feeding was a ritual, you need to introduce a new one.

For example, you can carry on your hands and tell something monotonous and soothing: "On the first floor mice sleep, on the second floor they sleep cats, dogs sleep on the third floor, bunnies sleep on the fourth floor... "and so on, until the names of animals run out or the baby fall asleep.

The older your baby is, the easier it will be to negotiate with him about weaning without resorting to smearing it with brilliant green and other extreme methods. But you need to prepare for excommunication gently and gradually, introducing other ways to calm and lull him.

You will also be interested to read:

• the most common mistakes of young mothers
• how to tell if a baby is not ready for weaning
• what vaccinations can lactating mothers get