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Night wakings can be one of the most confusing parts of early parenting — especially when you’re wondering whether your baby is waking out of hunger or habit. In this episode, Allison Egidi tackles one of the most common questions she gets as a certified sleep consultant: How do I know when my baby is ready to sleep through the night without feeding?

Allison shares:
— The difference between true hunger and habitual night wakings
— Her experience helping her own daughter (and thousands of client families) through the night-weaning process
— Typical milestones that suggest your baby may be ready to drop night feedings
— How to gradually and gently reduce night feeds without guilt
— Signs that it may be too soon to wean — and when to check in with your pediatrician
— Why night feeding rhythms can stick around longer than necessary and how to reset them

You’ll leave this episode with a framework for night weaning that feels compassionate, evidence-informed, and tailored to your baby’s readiness — not someone else’s timeline.

Click here to listen to the episode on YouTube

From baby sleep to toddler sleep, daycare naps to sleep training—How Long ’Til Bedtime? is the podcast for parents who want practical, guilt-free sleep tips they can actually use.

Hosted by pediatric sleep coach Allison Egidi, each episode delivers real solutions for every stage—from navigating newborn sleep struggles and weaning night feedings to helping your 3-year-old fall asleep independently (and stay asleep!). Whether you’re trying to make sense of daycare sleep patterns, craving your evenings back, or simply need a working mom podcast to keep you grounded, you’re in the right place.

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Looking for expert guidance on your child’s sleep? Allison offers two free age-specific guides to help you discover how much sleep kids need to thrive—at any age. Get your free copy now: 0-2 Years Old or 3 to 10 years old

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Scroll down for a full transcript of this episode.

215. How to Know If It’s Time to Wean Night Feedings (Without Feeling Guilty)

Hey guys, before we dive in, I just want to take a second to send some love to all of the parents navigating childcare struggles right now. As you can imagine, I hear a lot about a variety of childcare situations from my clients. The amazing, the irritating, and the downright frustrating situations.

Last night after my tennis match, was chatting with my good friend who lost her home in the explosion here in August about her latest childcare struggles. She had her brand new au pair decide to leave for a fresh start after the explosion. Then she had a nanny she had to let go of in the first week for stealing. And her newest nanny ended up with an injury unrelated to her job with them that is preventing her from working. So she is currently without childcare. I mean, can these poor parents catch a break? It can be tricky to get off a wait list to get into the daycare that you want your child or children to attend. And it can be so hard to find a nanny that fits into your family and is reliable.

And while I don’t have a solution, my gosh, do I wish that I did. I just want to send you all so much love. This working parenting thing is no joke. And in case you need to hear this today, you are doing an awesome job. Okay, on to today’s episode. If you have ever wondered, is my baby really hungry at night? Or are they just waking out of habit? You are not alone. This is one of the most common and confusing topics that I get asked about as a sleep consultant. Today, we’re talking about how to tell when your baby is capable of sleeping through the night, how you can approach night weaning without guilt, and what signs to look for to know that your baby is truly ready.

If you’ve been wondering if your baby is ready to drop their night feedings or you’re feeling guilty about even considering helping your baby night wean, this episode is for you.

Hey there, Allison here. Welcome back to How Long ‘Til Bedtime. I think it’s safe to say that the topic of night weaning comes up in nearly every consultation I do with babies under one years old. And I totally get why. Parents want to have their baby sleep through the night and they want to sleep through the night. But no parent wants to deprive their baby of something that they might still need.

But sometimes night feedings linger longer than they need to because a baby just didn’t drop it on their own. And it’s hard to know when it’s okay to make a change for them. I get it because I literally fed my oldest daughter during the night until she was nearly two years old. That’s when we finally hired a sleep consultant who talked me into dropping the night feedings and it was a game changer. So, the question is when is a baby ready to go 11 to 12 hours at night without a night feeding? And here’s the truth. There is no evidence-based answer for exactly when a baby no longer needs night feedings. Your pediatrician might give you one guideline. Another pediatrician might say something totally different. And if you were to ask five sleep consultants, you’re likely to get five different opinions. That’s because the reality is we are all going off anecdotal data, our own experiences with the hundreds or thousands of families that we’ve worked with, because not one standardized study says at X months and X pounds, all babies can sleep through the night.

So take what you hear, even from me, as a framework or something to think about, but not a prescription. After working with well over thousand babies, my general recommendation, again, based on experience, not science, is that by 16 pounds or six months, whichever comes first, most babies are capable of sleeping through the night without a feeding. Now, that doesn’t mean every baby will magically start doing that on their own. And it definitely doesn’t mean that you need to night wean just because your baby hits one or both of these milestones. It simply means that from a developmental and nutritional standpoint, most babies can consolidate their calories during the day and sleep longer stretches at night. I also want to caution you against getting too focused on where your baby falls on the growth chart.

Whether your baby is in the 25th percentile or the 75th percentile doesn’t really indicate readiness to sleep through the night. What I do look for when deciding how to navigate night feedings is whether your baby has stayed on their growth curve. If for example, a baby has been dropping on their growth chart, that’s absolutely a reason to have a follow-up conversation with your pediatrician before making any changes to their nighttime feedings.

So back to my oldest and her night feedings. One reason I was reluctant to drop them was because she was in the fifth percentile. But feeding her through the night did not help her move up the curb one bit. After we dropped her night feedings, she stayed right at that fifth percentile curve for quite some time before finally having a noticeable growth spurt. Turns out she’s just a petite person, which actually makes total sense because while I am not petite, my mom and sister are tiny and Mike’s sisters are petite too. Something else I’ve noticed over the years is that babies who don’t naturally drop their night feedings by six months will often end up needing a little help from their parents to do so.

I suspect that that’s because our bodies love a rhythm. As babies develop a mature circadian rhythm, they also tend to settle into feeding rhythms, which means they may continue to wake simply because their body is used to waking and eating at those times. Those hunger cues are often driven by habit rather than need. Let me give an example. If you eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner at roughly the same time every day, you’ll start to feel hungry around those times each day no matter what, no matter how much you ate the meal before. I had to laugh. The Sunday and Monday after the fall time change, I was starving for lunch at 11 a.m. and it took me a second to realize that’s because I usually eat lunch at noon, which was the new 11. Exactly why I felt hungry at 11, even though I had eaten breakfast at my typical time. It wasn’t about the hours between the meal. It was about the rhythm and the timing. So just like adults, babies can get stuck in a night feeding rhythm. The good news, that rhythm can be reshaped.

So let’s go back to that example of eating meals at the same time every day. If you decide to try intermittent fasting and you’re not going to eat breakfast, you’re going to wait until 11 a.m. for your first meal. Those first two or three days, you would still get hunger cues at your old breakfast time. But after a few days, those cues fade and you start to get hungry around 11. Your rhythm adjusts.

It’s the same for babies. When you drop one of your baby’s night feedings, it may take their body a few days to adjust, but if they’re ready, they will settle into the new rhythm pretty darn quickly. Now let’s talk about how to ease your way into night weaning because you don’t want to just go from three or four feedings a night to nothing. That would be a painful adjustment.

The key to adjusting those rhythms in a way that’s not too uncomfortable is to make changes gradually, but also every few days. So first, try not to feed more often during the night than you would during the day. If your baby eats every three hours during the day, aim for a similar rhythm overnight rather than feeding every single time they wake up. Next, with your pediatrician sign off, try spacing night feedings to every four hours. That usually means two night feedings, one roughly before midnight and then another in the early morning hours. Then when you’re ready to drop to one feeding, offer it in the middle of the night, halfway between bedtime and morning wake up. And finally, when you’re ready to drop that last feeding, remove it completely, ideally as part of a broader sleep training plan so your baby has the skills to self-soothe back to sleep.

As you go through these steps, give it about three to four nights for your baby’s body to adjust. If things improve by night four, meaning your baby isn’t really waking upset at that old feeding time, that would be your sign to move forward to the next step. If your baby is still very upset, meaning you can’t even settle them with help and nothing has improved by night four, that may be your cue to bring back a night feeding. No harm done. Just try again in another seven to 14 days. As you reduce night feedings, especially as you move to one and then to no night feedings, you will likely notice an increase in daytime intake. It’s not usually ounce for ounce, however, so don’t panic if we aren’t suddenly transferring eight full ounces to another spot in the day. What typically happens is that the first morning feed becomes larger and often ends up being the biggest feeding of the day. That’s your baby’s body naturally rebalancing intake. So there you have it. That’s a framework you can consider using if you decide to night wean.

And if you take one thing from today’s episode, please let it be this. You don’t have to night wean if you don’t think your baby is ready. And on the flip side, you’re not a bad parent for wanting a full night of sleep for you and your baby. Your baby will not be deprived if you’re thoughtfully and gradually helping them drop night feedings that they no longer need. This process doesn’t have to be all or nothing. It’s a balance between biology, habits, and your baby’s unique readiness. And you can move at the pace that feels right for both of you. And you can remember my favorite parenting mantra. Make the best decision you can with the knowledge you have at the time, and you can always reserve the right to change your mind.

So whether you’re weeks or months away from dropping night feedings, I hope this episode gives you a roadmap and permission to trust your instincts. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with a friend who is in the thick of night wakings right now. And don’t forget to follow the podcast so you don’t miss an episode. Until next time, I’m wishing you solid sleep and confident parenting decisions. Bye for now.