Night Weaning

I've dreaded night weaning for 21 months now. Henry has always fed back to sleep, despite all the 'helpful' advice telling new mums that this shouldn't be done. The fact that breastmilk contains oxytocin, prolactin, melatonin and cholecystokinin (all hormones to help mum and baby sleep) would suggest that  this advice is total rubbish and in fact, breastmilk is the perfect thing to get babies back to sleep. I just went with it, sleep was more important to us than following advice about getting into bad habits, and so we fed back to sleep for 21 months. I was dreading having to wean at night because I foolishly believed  what I read - that we were getting into very bad habits that would be a nightmare to break.

They weren't. 

This week Henry has totally night weaned, he hasn't had a night feed all week and we haven't had tears, we haven't lost any sleep and I'm so so relieved.

I was planning on doing it over the summer holidays because I really thought that we wouldn't get much sleep and it would be really stressful, but I couldn't have been more wrong. The other night Henry woke up and asked for milk and I just thought I'd see what happened if I said no and offered water instead. To my surprise, he was totally fine; drank some water, cuddled in to me, and fell back to sleep. I thought it was a fluke but tried the same thing next time he woke and again, the same happened. So we're now a week in with no boob during the night. He's still been waking up, but with a quick cuddle and a drink of water he's been more than happy to go back to sleep and he's then had a nice big milk feed when he wakes up on a morning.

It just goes to show that these babies know exactly what they're doing. Their little bodies (and ours) are made perfectly and know exactly what we need. Listening to totally useless advice has made me worry for 21 months about something that hasn't even happened. 

Next step, finishing breastfeeding completely. And I'm dreading that for totally different reasons, I'm not sure my heart is ready to give up my little baby just yet....