Question about night-weaning (or not weaning, as it were...)

RioG1978

DD is 9 months old, we bedshare half the night (she goes to bed at 7, I bring her to bed with me during her first wake up after I go to bed, around 10 or so.)

She eats fairly regularly at 2 and 4 in the night (and at 10 when I bring her to bed, and sometimes again at 6...)  Not just comfort nursing... but an actual feeding (or at least that's what it seems like).

 I'm pretty comfortable with how things are, and well-rested enough that it shouldn't be a problem when I go back to work in June, but I'm curious - will she just drop these feeds on her own? 

I haven't decided yet if I'm going to nurse past 12 months, but in reality I probably will if it's still going well.  At that point though it will mainly be at night, as she will be in daycare.

I guess I'm just curious if there is a natural developmental progression to this, or if I'm going to have to help her along when I no longer want to nurse at night. 

tokenhoser

Some babies will, some won't. My son wouldn't. At 18 months, he still wanted to eat every 2 hours. That's when I chose to night wean (and he took it pretty well, really).

ETA: I went back to work at 12 months. That's part of why I let the night nursing go on a while, but we've continued since night weaning as well. He nurses after work, before bed, in the morning, and more often on weekends.

nosoup4u

Neither of mine did. DS2 nursed less often overnight than DS1 did when they got past a year. I ended up nightweaning DS1 around 20 months, and DS2 from like 15 months until 24 months (he *really* didn't want to nightwean! Sigh.).

blu-eyedwife

Mine dropped his "regular" night feeding at 14 months (he was only waking once prior to that).

Now he only wakes up at night wanting to nurse if he's sick or teething.

RioG1978

Huh.  so it's not looking very promising, is it?

tokenhoser

You're only at 9 months. "Wait and see" is a totally valid strategy. Nursing a 12+ month old is quite different even than what you've got now.

ILoveRunning

I haven't taken any active steps to wean DS and he is naturally progressing on his own.  At 18 months he was down to one waking at night, and I would crawl into bed to cuddle with him since he was in his own room.  At two years, he stopped waking every night and was down to a few times a week (usually due to illness, wet diaper, losing a blanket, etc).  Now, he rarely wakes up.  I'm also finding that he is dropping his afternoon session, leaving us with morning and bedtime.  

TiffanyBerry

It's certainly a natural progression - I think even if mom did *NOTHING*, a 10 year old would not be nursing in the middle of the night.  It might not happen on a time scale that you are willing to go with, though.

At ~15 or 16mo, DD was still nursing at least three times a night.  That was too much for me, even though we were cosleeping.  So we did partial night weaning (Dr. Jay Gordon method first - set hours that were nursing-free - then a "just one time a night") which is what we are still at.

But she almost 3, and I'm getting tired of nursing in the middle of the night for three minutes for comfort.  So, I've been talking to her about the fact that, in a few weeks, we're not going to get milk in the middle of the night any more.  I'm not pushing it, because she may be working towards self-weaning even more (she didn't nurse first thing in the morning for the first time ever yesterday).  So, I'm finding that a lot of it is really paying attention to what DD seems to need (and I consider needing comfort to be a need), and balancing it with what I am able to give.

Angela814

My girls were both the same as yours. They nursed a couple times a night still at that age, and they were definitely eating. We got down to 1-2 night feedings, but they weren't willing to drop either of those on their own. I night weaned DD1 at 26 months and DD2 at 25 months.