Night Weaning a toddler: can it be part of your gentle parenting journey?

Most parents expect disrupted sleep when their newborn arrives. They are tiny, living on milk alone and have no understanding of night and day. However, longer-term tolerance of night waking varies greatly depending on your attitude to raising infants.

Some people believe babies need to be trained to sleep for long periods during the night. Some establish firm schedules right from the early weeks, based on the clock and their expectations. Some parents attend "sleep school" with babies as young as six weeks, follow baby trainers online or employ sleep consultants to come to the home and "teach" the baby how to self-settle. These approaches are rarely compatible with successful breastfeeding as they discourage cosleeping, feeding to sleep and responsive breastfeeding.

Some parents are shocked to find their one year old is waking nearly as often as they were as a newborn! Talking to family and friends about how tired they are and how often their baby is waking is usually greeted with encouragement to wean and guidance to sleep train.

In Australia, just 28% of babies are breastfed at 12 months. By 18 months, the number plummets to 9% and only 5% reach the minimum age of two recommended by the World Health Organization.

When nobody in your circle of family or friends has breastfed longer than a few months, parents can start to believe they might be doing something wrong. If all the other babies were weaned and sleep trained well before they turned one, they can feel isolated and unsupported.

However, in circles where breastfeeding goals are vague and focused on the child being ready to end the breastfeeding relationship, night feeding continues throughout the second year and into the third. Natural, child-led breastfeeding generally ends sometime between the second and fourth birthday - with night waking reduced once the two year old molars have erupted. Reduced, not ending. Like everyone, young children do not sleep through the night. Older children will wake to toilet, to hydrate, in response to noise and other stimulus and due to fluctuations in temperature. Night terrors and nightmares, bed-wetting and scary shadows will disrupt adult sleep for most of childhood.

So back to our original question: can you gently night-wean a toddler while continuing to embrace child-led parenting, bed-sharing and natural term breastfeeding?

There are programs and practioners claiming to offer gentle weaning and sleep support. However, any adult manipulation of developmentally normal child behaviour cannot be considered to be natural parenting. We know that humans are designed to be breastfed day and night with close connection to their mother throughout early childhood.

When a child is ready to resettle without a breastfeed, alternative gentle techniques like cuddling, rocking or patting will be successful. When a child is not ready, these actions will distress and confuse them. Babies under three do not have the brain development necessary to comprehend concepts like morning and night and won't understand why they can have breastfeeds sometimes and not others. They will become upset, frustrated and be hard to settle. It is particularly challenging if you want to continue bed-sharing but end breastsleeping, as your child has rarely needed to be fully awake to feed and will naturally seek the breast when they stir. Refusal will result in full waking.

When night waking absolutely must end due to circumstances which leave no alternative, weaning and leaving the family bed can happen. But not without distress. A strong attachment between mother and child is the foundation for resilience and the relationship will survive and thrive however it cannot be done without tears.

If your attempts to reduce or cease nighttime breastfeeding result in a highly distressed child or mother, then now is not the time. Wait a few weeks or months and try again. Avoid common developmental leaps around 15 months, 17 months and 21 months as well as periods of active teething and even mild illness. If you have conceived a new baby before weaning this one, transition from breastsleeping well before your due date or accept you will be sleeping alongside two for awhile. The impending or recent birth of a sibling is not the time for big changes.

Members of our online and real life village will support your night feeding and discourage night weaning before the second birthday. However, we do understand that modern life comes with overwhelming challenges and we respect you may have no other option.