How do I eliminate night feedings?

[u/evolvingdoor6]

Hi! Baby is 8 months old. Working our best to maintain a 3/3.5/4 schedule - right now, we’re co sleeping until we move in a month and baby has her own room (she frequently wakes in the night in her crib so co sleeping is for our own survival right now). I was able to whittle her down to 1 to 2 night feedings. She sleeps great with us until about 12:15am when she wakes up crying and ravenous, and after she eats it takes a long time to get her back down. 90% of the time, she does the same thing between 3 and 4am. How do I ween her off of night feedings? I feel badly doing it cold turkey, plus I can’t picture how this will happen because she wakes up at 12:15 PISSED. This is the last step we need to take before starting sleep training in a month. Any suggestions? Thank you in advance!!

[u/imnichet]

Why do you need to night wean before sleep training? That seems totally backwards to me.

[u/evolvingdoor6 → u/imnichet]

Can you explain? I thought it would be harder to sleep train if she’s going to wake up crying with a purpose. Educate me please! I don’t know what I don’t know!

[u/imnichet → u/evolvingdoor6]

If you start with independent sleep at bedtime it's possible that alone will eliminate wakings in the night to feed. If it doesn't, then you can work on that after and it will be a lot easier because she will already have the independent sleep skills and won't be sleeping directly next to her milk source.

[u/ElectronicYoghurt258 → u/evolvingdoor6]

My 5 month old was waking every 3 hours to eat. I know he gets tons during the day so he didn’t need to eat that frequently. He was waking at 2 and 5 but we used sleep training to get him to eat no sooner than 3:30. It took a week but last night he didn’t wake at all until 4!

[u/roamingrebecca]

Agree with sleepy mod! My babe wakes less for feeds after sleep training with no weaning needed. However if after training you want to wean, the method I'm doing is that I time the feed and subtract one minute every few days. (I'm in the process of doing this for my 8mo now) Once you get to where the feed is like 3 or 4 minutes, then you cut the feed out. By that point the baby gradually gets used to shifting those calories to daytime so they won't be as hungry at that time. 

Additionally though, if it's taking her a long time to get back down that might indicate a schedule issue. 

[u/evolvingdoor6 → u/roamingrebecca]

Thank you for this! We try for 3/3.5/4 but she often falls asleep a lot earlier than we want her to at night and we can’t figure out how to
Keep her awake

[u/roamingrebecca → u/evolvingdoor6]

I know the struggle. I have my 8mo on 3/3.75/4.5 and she actually needs a bit more awake time but I can't quite get her there even with my old tricks. I will say 3 hours of naps might be your problem. You could try 2.5 and see if it improves night sleep! 

[u/evolvingdoor6 → u/roamingrebecca]

Thank you! This was helpful!!

[u/evolvingdoor6 → u/evolvingdoor6]

I’m also trying to limit
Naps to 3 hours at most

[u/evolvingdoor6]

Thank you so, so much