I got dh involved when we were trying to get ours to go just a tad bit longer. Daddy's are good at distracting babies from boobies. He would lay baby on his chest and have a nice conversation with him while rubbing his back, then, if baby fell back to sleep, fine, if not, I would nurse him. But, I had an every hour on the hour feeder too, and it was trying. You will miss it though. When they are 7 and refuse to hold your hand, or begrudgingly give you a kiss goodnight because they are "not a baby anymore".

I did not use this method but several of the parents in my group have and have no regrets.
Many mothers have said it saved them from sleep deprivation frustration.

There are times they still nurse their children mid night, like the article discusses and none of them let their child become hysterical.

My son was much older when I decided to cut back on night nursing, a personal choice for me and would never expect anyone else to wait as long as I did...
What I did with him was keep track of his night nursing to get an idea of how often he woke.
The first week I cut out one of the feedings telling him that my Ninny's were sleeping and we had a let them rest a bit... Most of the time he was fine with it, on occasion he really really needed to nurse and I could tell the difference. (Every hour on the hour here too!)
Each week we would cut out another feeding and it took me months to finally get him to where we nurse to go to sleep then we have to wait until the sun comes up. This is probably too long for most moms by the time they are ready to night nurse.

Every child, every parent is different so check with lots of varied sources and try things out. You will know when you find the right one for yourself. It will feel comfortable.


It is hard when it ends. After my youngest girl, 22y now, stopped, my heart broke. When I had my son I was so excited to be able to nurse him at night and to be woken up for breastfeeding instead of the things that teens / young adults wake their parents up for.

There was a one year period in the last 27 years where I could sleep at night. My kids had moved out, I was still trying IVF, but pretty much given up and I still did not sleep. I would wake up missing the cuddle of my children next to me, which explains why I night weaned so late with this one.

Just curious as to when everyone started night weaning?

Did you cut out a few feeds at a time first?

or Cut out feeding altogether?

Curious for some ideas.