How to Night Wean a Co-sleeping Toddler – fast and respectful!

My daughter was 16 months when we found out we were pregnant with baby number two! I knew from the start of this pregnancy that I wanted to night wean my toddler at some point before the baby came. I wanted to night wean her gently, slowly, and in a way that wouldn’t compromise our co-sleeping or nursing relationship.

So if your situation sounds similar to mine, then I hope this article helps you. I’m going to share my experience and tips for how to night wean a toddler. And yes, we currently still co-sleep and nurse to sleep at the beginning of the night!

I do feel the need to say a quick disclaimer…every situation, every family, and every toddler is different.  So what worked for me, may not work for you.
Also please remember that it is biologically normal for babies and toddlers to wake up during the night. It’s actually an unrealistic expectation for a baby to sleep through the night. They wake up for nourishment, for attachment, for safety, and a whole host of other reasons.

I follow a respectful/conscious parenting approach with my daughter, but particularly in the first two years of a baby’s life, I find many attachment parenting principles to feel extremely primal and natural to me. I always wanted to sleep with my daughter close to me, I wanted to nurse her for a minimum of two years, and I wore her in a wrap often during her first year of life.
I also nursed her during the night for the first year and a half of her life. So I am a big fan of parenting in a primal, natural way, and attachment parenting principles feel instinctual while my babies are little.

Despite what many people say, I feel that Respectful parenting and attachment parenting are able to coexist beautifully together in an intentional and conscious parent/baby relationship.

I actually think I’ll write a blog post about that sometime. But anyways, back to my story.

We got pregnant when my daughter was 16 months. She was still waking up 2-3x per night at this point. When I say “waking up”, it wasn’t that she was waking up ready to party, she would just wake up the way breastfed/co-sleeping babies and toddlers do….searching for the boob. Once I latched her she would happily drift back to sleep.

Reasons I Decided to Night Wean

I didn’t really mind my toddler waking up and nursing. But once I got pregnant, my breasts got very sensitive and I started having some nursing aversions.

I was also very tired and needed all the extra rest that I could get. I knew that the further along I got in my pregnancy, the more sleep I would need. Growing a human is exhausting, especially when you’re parenting a toddler all day!

And I really wanted to make sure that my daughter was night weaned before the baby came so that I wouldn’t be nursing a toddler AND a newborn throughout the night.

I also felt like my daughter was SO close to sleeping through the night on her own, and with her current sleep patterns, I felt that it would be a very easy transition to night wean and help her sleep better at night.

How I Night Weaned my Toddler

First I ordered this night weaning book.

We read this book together every day for a few weeks. I wasn’t attempting to night wean at this point, just to get her familiar with this book so she knew all the words.

After a few weeks of reading the book, I wanted to have open communication with her about the process of not nursing at night anymore. I never sat down and had an official “talk” about night weaning, but more just keeping the idea and the communication open with her so she knew what was happening.

Toddlers understand so much and I think it’s extremely respectful to talk to them ahead of time before big changes happen so they can be prepared. 

One night I decided to give it a try and cuddle her back to sleep when she woke up instead of nursing her back to sleep.

She woke up around 11:30pm that night asking for milk. I told her something like “I know you want some milk right now.” (acknowledging her feelings and desire). “We aren’t going to have milk right now because it’s dark outside and at nighttime we sleep. I’ll snuggle you and hold you while you drift back to sleep. I hear you. I know you’re sad. I’m here. I love you.”

In every situation of life, whether night weaning, or when my toddler is disappointed in something or when she is having a hard time during the day, I ALWAYS acknowledge her feelings and let her know that her emotions are valid. I want her to know that I see her, and that I’m here for her. So I didn’t treat night weaning any differently. It’s totally valid for her to be sad and disappointed that she couldn’t have milk.

So for around 20-30 minutes that night she cried and I held her. Eventually she fell back asleep snuggling with me. She may have woken up one other time in the night, but it definitely didn’t take as much work to get her back to sleep.

RELATED: How to Prevent Toddler Tantrums

The Results of the Night Weaning

The waking up asking for milk continued for a few nights. Never for as long as the first night though! After a few days – maybe a week – she wasn’t waking up at all during the night anymore! 

It’s been about 2 months now, and we are all sleeping so much better. My toddler stays asleep from the time she goes to bed until it gets light in our room in the morning (usually around 6:30am).  In the morning when she wakes up, we nurse for 30 minutes or so while we are both waking up. It’s a very gentle, special way to wake up!  I don’t view it as a “reward” at all, just as part of our routine (regardless of how the night went), that we nurse first thing in the morning. 

If there is an occasional night where she does wake up, she doesn’t ask for milk anymore, she just asks to snuggle. Once we start snuggling, she goes right back to sleep. Which is really the sweetest!

I completely understand being hesitant to night wean….I was for a long time! I was worried it would compromise our nursing relationship, or that it was impossible while co-sleeping, or that the transition would be really difficult.

None of those fears ended up becoming a reality. 

When we wait for the right time when our toddlers are actually ready, and when we prepare them by having open communication and explaining things to them, I believe the transition can happen quite smoothly!