How I night weaned my 14 month old, responsively, gently, and realistically.

I opened my social media this morning to see a mum asking whether anyone had tried putting lemon, Vegemite or wasabi on their nipples in order to night wean their toddler, and if so, how it went. Girl, I so understand the desperation to wean the night feeds, but there are much better ways!

So let me share my own story with night weaning my third baby, as a holistic sleep coach who has helped many families gently and effectively night wean over the years.

Unfortunately, there are no quick hacks that work for everyone, or one-size-fits-all approaches here. Every child, family and situation is unique and the strategy that works best for each will need to be, too. There are always multiple pathways to your goals, and we can find something that feels good and works for you.

This is what I did with my 13-14 month old; this is not a prescription for every toddler. But it might help.

I’m not the kind of sleep coach that mainly draws from my experience with my own children, because your babies are not the same as my babies! My 3 children have all been wildly different to each other, too!

Before we dive in…

Firstly, when we think about night weaning, we need to recognise that letting go of something our little one relies on, like feeding overnight, can feel like a genuine loss for them.

Even if they don’t physically need the calories, feeding is so much more than that! They still need the comfort, regulation, and connection it brings. So we want to support our little ones to move through this change in a healthy way. Rather than trying to bypass, dismiss or minimise their feelings, we can support our little ones through them with presence, empathy, and connection.

For us, this looked like staying close, cuddling, and actively trying to support regulation, acknowledging the feelings AND holding the boundary of no feed.

When they feel safe enough to express the disappointment that they’re not going to have the feed, and safely process it with their calm and available caregiver, they can then adapt, meaning they come to accept the change, without it feeling too overwhelming or distressing to their nervous system.

While we are talking specifically about night weaning, this adaptive process applies to so much more! There are many times throughout toddlerhood and beyond where our little ones realllly want something they either cannot have, or we cannot allow (“no babe, I’m so sorry but you simply can’t play with the knife!”). They might be mad! And we do actually want them to tell us about it. When the boundary is held - with kindness of course - they can accept that it’s not happening, accept our comfort, and adapt.

Okay! Here’s how it went for us:

Daphne was generally waking 1-3 times a night when she was 12-13 months old and for ease, I was feeding her back to sleep. I was happy to feed her to sleep at bedtime (and I still am, at 22 months now - we love it!) but I was feeling ready to wean the overnight feeds and knew it was a good time.

I generally don’t track sleep, but it can be so helpful when wanting to make changes. So I started tracking her sleep again for a couple of weeks, which meant I could be confident with her sleep needs. This helped me to support optimal sleep pressure for her, which would naturally help her nights and make it as easy as possible for her to resettle in another way overnight if she woke. Her body would be working with us, with a strong internal drive to get back to sleep if she did wake overnight.

I had layered in other comforts for her alongside feeding - since birth we had been patting, shushing, rocking, using deep pressure, pink noise and her teddy bear (from 7 months). I’d been using these to support her to sleep while also feeding. This means, when the feed isn’t there, she has other comforts still in place that she associates with falling asleep in her favourite way. Rather than flipping to something brand new, the scaffolding is already in place that we can lean on.

I started with setting a little goal that I’d resettle her first wake of the night without a feed, and if there were subsequent wakes, I’d just feed. This protected our rest overnight and gave me more stamina for supporting that first resettle if it felt tricky, knowing if she woke again it was going to be the quick and easy option to settle her back to sleep. This was also respect both of our bodies, with a gradual transition away from the night feeds. It was a big shift for me hormonally, as well as her.

The first night I tried the resettle without a feed it was pretty hard. My girl had some strong feelings about not being fed, and she was so good at letting me know about them! I held her and rocked, patted, shushed, kissed her face and wiped her tears. I had my headphones playing music that helped regulate me, so I could coregulate with her.

I won’t lie! It wasn’t easy. But I reminded myself that I was still right there comforting her, and that I am allowed to hold this loving, appropriate boundary (no feed at this time overnight) with responsiveness and support, and she is allowed to feel how she feels about this change, and express it! I was with her through it. This is part of that adaptive process.

Because we had the foundations in place first, it actually only took about 10 minutes for her to get back to sleep (but who else knows that 2 minutes can feel like 10 mins in the middle of the night, and 10 mins can feel like 30!?).

Her next wake was at 5:30am and I fed her back to sleep there.

I kept this plan in place - the first wake of the night, regardless of where it fell in the night, I attempted a resettle without a feed. Offering unlimited comfort and support - anything that wasn’t the feed. The first few nights she was always sad initially that I wasn’t feeding her. And I comforted her. The intensity of her reaction lessened each night and the time it took her to get back to sleep got quicker and quicker. After a few nights she was settling back to sleep pretty easily with a cuddle and our other layered in comforts.

Some nights she’d wake again after that first resettle, and I’d just check in with myself on whether I was up for another resettle, or just needed to do the quickest easiest thing to get back to sleep. If it was 5:30am or later, I’d always feed, as this is the hardest time of the night to resettle and I didn’t want to risk just being up for the day! Thankfully, these 5am wakes didn’t become a trend and were easily resolved with routine and sleep pressure adjustments.

It wasn’t long at all before she stopped needing the feeds overnight. It didn’t feel forced or rushed, or abrupt. Moments of the night weaning process did feel hard, of course! But there was so much connection and flexibility through the process and that’s what helped it feel good for both of us.

While 1-3 wakes for a feed wasn’t terrible, after weaning the overnight feeds, she started consistently sleeping right through the night, from bedtime to morning, which is a dream!

Occasionally of course she will wake overnight, because she is a human, and sleep is not linear. Recently her molars gave her a bit of grief and she needed comfort and pain relief overnight! And one night last week she woke at 4am because she was too cold, whoops!

This is what responsive night weaning can look like.

There are SO MANY ways to do this, and lots of wonderful strategies to approach night weaning with. So much of it will depend on your little one’s temperament, age and development, underlying needs, and what else is happening with sleep and life in general. This was just my story of how I approached it with Daphne.

If you want a personalised, truly holistic, fully responsive, attachment-focussed plan for your night weaning journey, book a consult. I’ve got you!

No wasabi on the nips over here 🤗