Today, let’s explain how to quit night milk. We invited Zhu Xiaojie, an international sleep consultant and also a teacher of three mothers, to sum up [the most complete night milk withdrawal plan in history].
Don’t speak of the big truth, only dry goods method and operation difficulties to answer questions, three ways and five ways, I believe there must be one suitable for you.
How old is the baby to give up night milk? How’s Night Milk Needs Quitting?
Before talking about specific methods, these two issues must be understood.
Generally speaking, the baby can start to completely wean the night milk when he has the ability to sleep well at 6 months old. At this time, the baby has already started to add supplementary foods, which is much fuller than drinking milk alone. The baby is not easy to get hungry at night and will not get up frequently to eat milk.
In addition, not all night milk needs to be abstained. Night milk that needs to be abstained should meet the following conditions:
1. Night milk for comfort
In other words, Eva must eat when she wakes up, and she will not sleep if she does not eat. Many mothers said, how do you judge whether the baby is hungry or needs to be comforted? You can try [extra meals] before going to bed. If the baby still gets up regularly to drink after extra meals, it is soothing milk.
2. It really bothers my mother’s sleep,
Mothers are only human beings, not gods. [Sacrificial, self-free] ways of raising are unstable. Many mothers do not sleep well for night milk and work during the day at night, thus affecting their sub-health mood.
See here, if you decide to give up night milk, you can look down.
Three Kinds of Methods and Five Kinds of Operations for Abstaining from Night Milk
There are many ways to get rid of night milk. We evaluate stars according to the baby’s suitable age, mildness, effective speed and difficulty. Baoma can consider and choose for themselves.
Category I: Step by Step Category
The main methods were to reduce the feeding times and prolong the feeding interval
Applicable to:
- The number of night milk is very frequent when the baby is young (< 6 months old), and the intake of night milk accounts for a large proportion of the milk required throughout the day.
Method 1: Combined with Night Milk Times
Degree of mildness:
Effective speed:
Difficulty:
Key points of operation: According to the actual situation of the baby, the previous night milk meal can be postponed, and the next night milk meal can be advanced at the same time, and two or more night milk meals can be combined into one meal.
For example, if the baby eats one meal at 1 o’clock and one meal at 3 o’clock every day, it can appease the baby to delay eating until 2 o’clock and change two meals into one meal.
Effect: For about a week, only one feeding is required at night.
Difficulties: Parents are required to have more patience and maintain consistency in the implementation process.
Method 2: Prolong the operation of night milk
Degree of mildness:
Difficulty:
Effective speed:
Key points of operation: observe and record the baby’s night milk rule, consciously extend the interval of each night milk meal, slowly let the baby get used to it, and gradually lengthen the interval, which can start from 30 minutes, then adjust to 1 hour, and finally reach dawn.
Advantages: Mild, the whole adjustment process is more relaxed.
Limitations: Parents’ patience and persistence are required to be higher and take a relatively long time. It is necessary to cooperate with other methods of weaning night milk to achieve the effect of completely canceling night milk.
The second category: hiding from the world
The main methods are as follows: Reduce the feeding time and dilute the milk quantity
Applicable to:
- The number of night milk is 1 ~ 2 times. Babies over 6 months old who wish to cancel the night milk at a specific time node cannot drink water dilution method (cannot drink water)
Method 1: Reduce Milk Volume/Reduce Feeding Time
Degree of mildness:
Effective speed:
Difficulty:
Bottle-fed baby:
Parents first record the amount of milk at night and then reduce it by 30ml per night. When the total milk volume is 30 ~ 60ml throughout the night, parents can consider completely canceling the 1 ~ 2 night milk.
For breast-fed babies, parents first record the feeding time of each night’s milk, for example, 20 minutes. Then they can first consider reducing it to 15 minutes in turn. For the next few days, shorten it by 3-5 minutes every day until it is completely cancelled.
Advantages: Mild, baby crying situation is more relaxed.
Limitations: The operation of the baby fed by the parent will be repeated.
Method 2: Dilution method to reduce milk quantity
Degree of mildness:
Effective speed:
Difficulty:
By reducing the concentration of milk in the bottle, the baby feels that it is not worth waking up to drink a night milk as light as white water. This method is more suitable for bottle feeding the baby. The specific operation is shown in the following figure.
Tips around the [pit]: If the bottle is completely white water, but the baby still drinks it with relish, parents need to pay attention:
- Is the humidity in the bedroom too low? ? Consider using a humidifier. Does the baby use the bottle as a pacifier? Please cancel this bottle feeding directly.
Advantages: Mild, and can achieve the ultimate goal of completely abstaining from night milk.
Limitation: There is a requirement on the number of times the baby can milk at night. If the baby’s night milk is frequent, it is easy to fail to stick to it.
One size fits all: not to eat directly (suitable for over 1 year old)
Degree of mildness:
Effective speed:
Difficulty:
Applicable object: children over 1 year old
Advantages: Deal with all night wakes in the same way, and dispel children’s illusion of [as long as they cry for enough time, they will have milk to eat]. The effect is quick and stable. As long as you stick to the first night, everyone has already succeeded by more than half.
Limitations: Crying in the first few days can be very serious, especially on the first night.
Operation mode: As the name implies, night milk is cancelled directly.
Tips for circling [pit]:
- Be on guard. If the mother and the child sleep together, And breast-feeding mothers, Be sure to wear a tight cover before going to bed, Avoid letting the baby easily lift the mother’s clothes to self-help the night milk. Must have the confidence to succeed once. Parents’ hesitation, Compromise and repetition, on the contrary, will make the big baby at a loss, increase unnecessary crying. Be gentle and stand firm. No milk to drink will definitely cry. But parents must not be affected by the baby’s crying-don’t scold the baby, don’t be angry, don’t be fierce.
How to choose the method suitable for your children,
The three types of methods and five methods mentioned above are different in operation time, difficulty and mildness. We have made a cousin comparison for everyone, which can be clearly compared.
When choosing the method of weaning the night milk, you need to consider the current frequency of the baby’s night milk and the baby’s personality traits.
Generally speaking, babies with mild personality and high acceptance of changes can try various methods at the same time, such as night milk reduction and reduction (single) at the same time.
For babies with stubborn personality and resistance to change, it is necessary to adjust the pace of night milk more slowly. For example, it is also recommended to extend the night milk time from 15 minutes to 20 minutes.
Once there was a treasure mother who left a message asking for advice:
My baby does not give milk to cry at night, and can cry until his face turns pale?
This kind of situation of the baby, is not suitable for one size fits all, should use a more gentle way to carry out.
Four Most Common Difficulties in Abstaining from Night Milk
1. What if the child cannot be coaxed without crying?
Every mother will encounter it, because it is impossible to wean her milk at night without crying or making noise.
The first thing to be adjusted is parents’ expectation-weaning at night is not an easy thing, it requires a lot of patience and persistence.
In addition, review your own plan-whether the selected method takes into account the frequency of the baby’s night milk and the baby’s personality traits.
The last point is also the most difficult. The whole family will keep on the front line and put an end to teammates who shake the morale of the army.
Many old people in the family are reluctant to let their children cry to interfere, which leads to the abandonment of all previous achievements. The family should do a good job. If conditions permit, the old people can avoid it for a few days or take their children back to their mother’s family.
2. What if the child does not eat night milk and does not sleep at night?
It is normal that there will be temporary difficulty in falling asleep during the night milk stage, but Eva can’t really stay up all night for one mouthful of milk. Moreover, even if she stays up all night, Eva is also very smart, and the second night she will know that this is useless.
If you really don’t eat or sleep, you may rely too much on milk to sleep. First of all, you should go to bed at night and change the habit of not sleeping without milk.
In addition, for older babies, they will not sleep in the morning and will not take a nap during the day, so they will be ready to fight with her to the end.
3. Will the child continue to be ill during the implementation of the plan?
Generally speaking, colds have incubation periods from the course of the disease. It is not possible to treat weaning at night as the cause of the baby’s illness because the baby is ill after the weaning plan is implemented. The sequence of events does not represent causal relationship.
Therefore, if the child only sneezes with runny nose, it is recommended to continue as planned.
If you encounter more complicated diseases, such as fever, during the implementation of the plan, please seek the advice of a professional pediatric doctor in time.
4. Does the night milk break or wake up regularly? How does it break?
It should be noted that weaning night milk can only solve the sleep problem caused by eating milk at night, and is not a pass to sleep peacefully at night. Many babies still wake up at fixed points even if they do not eat milk at night, because their biological clocks have already formed.
Before, a friend of mine’s baby took 7 days to wean the night milk when he was one and a half years old (across the board), but the child woke up regularly for one month (it can be seen that the sooner the night milk is weaned, the milder the effect is, the better.)
After the night milk is broken, if the baby wakes up regularly only once a night, he can use the method of [wake up to sleep]-by turning over the baby, tidying up his pajamas and sleeping bags, changing his sleeping posture, waking up the baby slightly, and then letting him continue to sleep.
If the baby still has the situation of multiple fixed-point wake-up, this needs to change the parents’ handling of the baby’s night wake-up to solve this problem. Parents should keep a low profile in handling the night wake-up, do not let the baby have expectations for the activities after the night wake-up, and at the same time, guide the baby to sleep again without/with less help from parents as much as possible.
At this time, if you use hug sleep, the dependence of waking up at night will shift from milk sleep to hug sleep, which is a new pit.
If it takes a long time to fall asleep again after waking up regularly at night, parents need to review whether the baby’s daytime schedule is reasonable and whether he gets up later in the morning. Is there any sense of return? The duration of daytime naps has increased significantly?
Finally, there is no magic method of abstaining from night milk, which is both mild and immediate. It is more a balance between efficiency and gentleness.
However, no matter which method is used, it cannot be changed overnight. In addition to fully understanding the baby’s choice of a better way, what is more needed is persistence. Sometimes success is just around the corner, but giving up persistence will give up all previous achievements.
Why is it so difficult to quit night milk?
Because this is really a protracted psychological and physical war for my mother, and my teammates (husbands and friends who encourage each other) who need to fight together can encourage and support each other and tide over the difficulties.
Finally, give the experience of several mothers who successfully gave up night milk, and let’s cheer each other up.
Author: Zhu Xiaojie