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How to wean a child from night feeding?
Last reviewed: 19.10.2021
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How to wean a child from night feeding? This is an important question, which sooner or later, almost all mothers ask themselves. Most children sleep well at night about 8-9 months after their birth. At this time, the baby at night can safely withstand a break of about 7-8 hours. He used to wake up to eat. Now the feeling of hunger is not so much. But how to wean the baby from breast feeding so that he was psychologically comfortable?
How to comfortably wean your child from night feeding
When a child falls asleep to the hungry, he will not be able to sleep for a long time and will necessarily wake up to ask for food. Therefore, before going to sleep it should be fed with food, but not heavy, but easy. For this purpose it is best to take porridge. Porridge from buckwheat, from oats, from rice on water or milk will be an excellent way to saturate the baby. This is an important component of the child's psychological comfort before excommunication from the breast at night.
There are two basic methods of weaning a child from night feeding. Both can be successfully applied. But the mother herself can choose what to do and how to wean the baby at night. It is important to take into account the fact that both methods are developed by psychologists for a more convenient, stressless excommunication of the child from night feeding.
Soft weaning of the baby from night feeding
With mild excommunication of the baby from mother's breast at night, it is possible to apply a reduction in daily feeding and supplementing the child with porridge. And then the child normally gorges, more than milk. And after that the child at night will no longer ask to eat and fall asleep.
Plus this method is that the child calmly and peacefully falls asleep, and the mother because of the reduction in the number of feedings reduces the amount of milk. This is called mild excommunication.
The disadvantages of this method are that mom may not adhere to a new schedule, break down, it is not always right to count the hours of feeding and fattening. In addition, it will be necessary to find out what kind of porridge the kid likes. He can love rice and not love buckwheat and vice versa.
From the minuses may also be the unwillingness of the child to take additional care - he can only demand breast. Therefore, mother needs to be very courageous to solve this issue correctly. She will have to deal with the pressure of the child, his whims and irritation, when the kid just does not understand why it was possible to eat mother's milk all the time, but now it does not.
When the child is excommunicated from the mother's breast, the mother must show the baby that she loves him. She should pay more attention to him, stroke him, kiss him, hug him, play games with him, talk. Then the kid will know that mom does not throw it. And if the mother will pay more attention to the child, he will not be so psychologically uncomfortable disaccustomed to breastfeeding at night.
Method number 2 - immediate weaning of the baby from the breast
This method is used when a woman needs to wean a child from night feeding fast, if she does not get enough sleep, when she needs to work or leave for a long time.
This is done when they stop feeding the baby at night right away, but you need to somehow sweeten the pill and give the opportunity to bear this stress. After all, at night a kid can wake up not only because he is hungry, but also because fears can torment him. And my mother's breast is the best and most reliable means of calming a baby.
The plus of this method is that the mother saves time for weaning. A minus is that the child feels anxious, when the mother's usual breast is now unavailable for him at the most alarming time of the day. For the baby this is stress, so it is important to approach the process of weaning from night feeding with understanding.
Night feeding and lactation
The more night feedings, the more milk is produced in the mammary glands of the mother. Therefore, the reduction of night feeding will give mom and milk reduction. So, the child will not be sucked enough. And necessarily go to the feed with a bottle and a pacifier. Scientifically proven that the hormone prolactin is the hormone that helps the production of milk. This hormone is produced most of all by the body during night feeding. To reduce the production of milk and gradually wean the baby from breastfeeding, it is important to shorten, and then stop feeding at night.