Will Night Weaning Mean More Sleep?

I write this post with love and a special nod to the mother who is beyond exhausted by frequent night wakes and wondering - if I stop breastfeeding overnight. will we all get more sleep?

My Experience

This question used to plague me as a first time mother. I felt surrounded by the rhetoric that if I:

"Just switched to formula..."

"Introduced solids early..."

Or

"Just stopped breastfeeding..."

Then my son would magically sleep through the night. You can imagine my disappointment when I did introduce solids a few weeks before he turned 6 months old (he was showing all signs of readiness and I was looking for a magic pill to get him sleeping longer stretches) and it made no impact whatsoever on his sleeping patterns.

And yet, I felt genuinely haunted by the suggestion that I was somehow causing my baby to wake up every hour on the hour at one point, because I was selfish and audacious enough to still be nursing him on demand.

Spoiler: my son started sleeping through the night (most of the time) in his own time at around 2 1/2 years old. He did this whilst I was still nursing him to sleep and on demand day and night. He is 7 now and occasionally goes through wakeful period when he is particularly excited, anxious, tired or stressed. Needless to say, sometimes I wish that nursing him back to sleep within minutes was an option!

But will it help us?

If you're still reading it's probably because you too are wondering if weaning, or night weaning will bring you and your family more sleep. In my limited experience - anecdotally - I can honestly say that if sleep is the only reason you are considering weaning (or night weaning), then I don't recommend it.

Yes, sometimes, stopping nursing on demand does result in longer, more consolidated stretches of sleep. At other times, it makes no difference at all (and then you need a new way of getting your little one back to sleep overnight). The inconvenient truth is that our children's sleep Is:

A) Developmental - like walking, talking & being potty trained. Every. Child. Is. Different.

B) Influenced heavily by your unique child's temperament and sensitivities

There are of course ways that you can create healthy sleep habits and optimise the environment for your little one, but the reality is that we cannot control every aspect of our children's sleep. Many other cultures around the world seem to recognize and acknowledge this, but in the UK and the US, society still loves to blame breastfeeding when a baby or toddler wakes frequently overnight.

So should I wean?

If you are considering stopping breastfeeding for reasons other than sleep alone, then your desire alone is all the justification that you need. You're allowed to stop breastfeeding or breastfeeding overnight simply because you want to. Click here for my do's and don'ts of night weaning, adapted from the best-selling Weaning with Love course.

But if you are only considering night weaning in the hope that you'll get more sleep, check out this post, instead. It contains my top tips for surviving as a no-sleep-nursing mama.

With love,

Danielle

❤️