Mama Rooted

Category: Baby Sleep Routine

  • Newborn sleep in the first 8 weeks — what’s normal, what helped, and what I stopped worrying about

    Newborn sleep in the first 8 weeks — what’s normal, what helped, and what I stopped worrying about

    ⚠️ Affiliate disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

    Every single night for the first few weeks, she was up from 1am to 4am.

    Not stirring. Not fussing gently. Up. Crying, not settling, refusing every attempt I made to help her back to sleep.

    I changed her nap schedule.

    I adjusted the bedtime.

    I tried a calmer night routine, a more structured day, a different order of things.

    Nothing stuck.

    And then one night — around week two — she slept through.

    I lay in the dark at 4am convinced I had finally figured it out. I had cracked the code. I mentally composed a whole post about it.

    She didn’t do it again for another ten days.

    That is the most honest summary I can give you of newborn sleep. Not a method. Not a system. A long, humbling exercise in releasing the idea that you are in control — and finding a way to survive until the baby’s biology catches up.

    What’s actually happening in those first weeks

    A newborn arrives into a world that is, by every measure, overwhelming.

    Bright. Loud. Cold. Full of sensory input that her tiny nervous system has never encountered before. She has left the only environment she has ever known — warm, safe — and landed somewhere that requires her to process everything at once.

    Her sleep in those early weeks reflects exactly that. Newborns don’t have a functioning circadian rhythm yet. It develops over the first weeks as her brain is exposed to light, dark, and the rhythms of life outside the womb.

    If you’re wondering whether it’s normal for a newborn to stay awake for hours overnight the answer is yes.

    In the first 6–8 weeks, newborn sleep is driven largely by feeding needs and neurological development rather than schedules.

    So the 1am-to-4am window that wrecked us? Her body genuinely didn’t know that was night. She wasn’t doing it to us. She was navigating a world she hadn’t begun to understand yet.

    Knowing this didn’t make those hours easier. But it made them feel different.

    Less like failure, more like patience.

    What started to shift at week three

    Around week three, something loosened.

    Not dramatically. Not a full night’s sleep. But enough that the things we were doing started to matter more. Nights started to feel slightly more like nights.

    And two things had a clear role in that shift.

    Blackout curtains — from the moment she became more visually aware, any light in the room was working against us. Light signals the brain to stay awake. Darkness tells the brain that sleep is appropriate.

    The Deconovo Blackout Curtains were the first environmental change that made a tangible difference. Genuinely dark. Not dim — dark. Under $30.

    Check the blackout curtains on Amazon →

    White noise — consistent, low, steady, on all night. Not a playlist that ends. Not a fan that varies.

    The Hatch Rest+ ran on the nightstand from the newborn days and never came off. Over time, the sound itself became part of the cue.

    White noise on meant sleep was coming. That association takes weeks to build, which is why starting it early matters.

    Once her circadian rhythm began to set and she started reading the environmental cues, the nights began — slowly, imperfectly — to make more sense to both of us.

    Check the Hatch Rest+ on Amazon →

    The swaddle — worth mentioning here

    In the first eight to ten weeks, a snug swaddle helps contain the startle reflex that wakes newborns from light sleep.

    We used Comfy Cubs Muslin Swaddle Blankets — large enough to swaddle properly, soft enough to keep using as burp cloths, clean-up cloths, nursing covers, and stroller shades long after the swaddling phase passed.

    The one rule: the moment your baby shows any signs of attempting to roll, stop swaddling immediately. That is not a preference — it is a safety requirement.

    Check the Comfy Cubs muslin swaddles on Amazon →

    What I stopped fighting — and why

    There were two things I spent the first weeks resisting. And then I stopped.

    Feeding to sleep.

    Every piece of advice I had read said not to do it. Create independent sleep associations. Don’t be the sleep prop.

    And I tried.

    But she was brand new, overwhelmed, and I was the only thing she had ever known as safe.

    Her body had a source of comfort built in — the feed, the warmth, the closeness — and in those first weeks, when the world was still so new and so much, taking that away felt like the wrong battle to fight.

    I stopped fighting it.

    I fed her to sleep.

    She settled.

    We both got more rest.

    Being the only one who could settle her.

    I accepted this too. Not resentfully — genuinely.

    She knew my smell, my heartbeat, my voice. Of course she wanted me. That’s not a failure of our setup. That’s biology.

    And yes — there were plenty of contact naps. In those first weeks, sleep was the goal. Independence could come later.

    What we did do was divide the other tasks deliberately so that the weight didn’t fall entirely on one person.

    My husband handled the nappy changes, the burping after feeds, the resettling attempts before I came in, the morning shift while I slept.

    Not 50/50 by the hour — that’s not realistic.

    But agreed in advance, written down, owned.

    If you haven’t sat down together and divided the newborn tasks before the baby arrives, the partner task divider in the Mama Rooted Third Trimester Workbook is the place to start. It is the conversation that prevents the resentment that builds when one person is silently carrying everything.

    Grab your partner task divider for free here!

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      What I want you to hear if you’re in it right now

      The 1am to 4am window will not be your life forever.

      I know that is easy to say from the other side.

      I know that at 2am when nothing is working and you haven’t slept more than two hours at a stretch in eleven days, “it’s temporary” lands somewhere between obvious and useless.

      But it is temporary.

      Her circadian rhythm is developing right now, in those exact chaotic nights.

      Her brain is building the associations — dark means sleep, white noise means sleep, this sequence of things means the night is for rest — and she is doing it faster than it feels like she is.

      You are not doing it wrong.

      She is not broken.

      You are both learning something that takes weeks, not days.

      Stop fighting the things that are working.

      Feed to sleep if it helps.

      Accept that you might be the only one who can settle her right now.

      Put the blackout curtains up.

      Turn the white noise on.

      Divide what you can divide.

      And then wait.

      Because week three is coming.

      And week six after that.

      And at some point — not on a schedule, not on a timeline anyone can give you — the nights will begin to make sense.

      For what comes after these first weeks — the 4-month regression, the night weaning, the contact naps — it’s all in the blog. The sleep journey has a lot of chapters.

      This is just the first one.

      If you’re in week one right now and it’s hard — reach out. I mean it.

      📌 Save this for any mama in the thick of the early weeks who needs to hear that it’s going to change. Lots of love, Mama Rooted.

      Also on Mama Rooted

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      • Baby Sleep Essentials — What We Actually Used, Including Through the 4-Month Regression

        Baby Sleep Essentials — What We Actually Used, Including Through the 4-Month Regression

        We never sleep trained.

        We co-slept, breastfed to sleep, and had a bedtime routine we kept every single night without exception. Our daughter now sleeps independently, says her affirmations before she falls asleep, and has done so since well before two.

        The sleep products that made the biggest difference were not complicated.

        They were dark.
        They were quiet.
        They were consistent.
        And they were in the right place at the right time.

        Here is everything we actually used.

        ⚠️ Affiliate Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you. I only recommend things I personally used or carefully researched.

        For moms setting up sleep in a hurry

        If you only want the short version, these are the things I would set up first:

        If I could only choose two things from this list, I would start with blackout curtains and the Hatch Rest+. The routine mattered most, but the room setup made the routine easier to repeat.

        The non-negotiables

        Blackout curtains

        Blackout curtains were completely non-negotiable for us from month two.

        Once a baby becomes more visually aware — which happens fast — any light in the room can become a sleep disruptor. A nap that was forty-five minutes becomes twenty. A night that was settled becomes fragmented. Morning light starts the day before anyone is ready.

        We used Deconovo Blackout Curtains because they were affordable, genuinely dark, and easy to hang.

        If you are only going to add one thing to the sleep setup right now, I would start here.

        Shop blackout curtains on Amazon →

        White noise

        White noise was on all night, every night.

        Not a playlist.
        Not a fan we hoped would be loud enough.
        Consistent, low, steady white noise that ran through the whole night.

        By the 4-month regression, she was much more aware of sound. A door opening. A car outside. A cough. Someone moving around. All of it could register.

        The Hatch Rest+ Sound Machine was on our nightstand from the newborn days and stayed there.

        I liked that it was phone-controlled, so I did not have to get up to adjust it mid-feed. It also worked as a nightlight at the dimmest possible setting — just enough to see, without making the room feel awake.

        Shop the Hatch Rest+ on Amazon →

        A safe sleep surface

        A safe sleep surface is the baseline everything else builds on.

        For babies, that means a bassinet, crib, or bedside crib with a firm, flat mattress and a fitted sheet. Nothing loose in the sleep space.

        No pillows.
        No blankets.
        No soft toys.
        No loose muslins.

        We made the sleep choices that worked for our family, but I want to be very clear: safe sleep matters, and every parent should make informed decisions based on current guidance and their own pediatrician’s advice.

        A bedside crib or bassinet can be a helpful middle ground if you want baby close, but still on their own separate sleep surface. We chose the Baby Delight Beside me Dreamer bassinet because it was easy to use, sturdy and affordable and it worked pretty well for us.

        Shop bedside bassinets on Amazon →

        The bedtime routine — the thing that mattered most

        If there is one thing I credit most with getting through the newborn phase and the 4-month sleep regression, it is this:

        Same order.
        Same timing.
        Every single night.

        The products helped, but the rhythm is what held everything together.

        1. Short oil massage

        Five minutes of warm coconut oil, gentle strokes, legs, arms, and back.

        She still reaches for this at two years old.

        It was not fancy. It was not a long spa-like baby routine. It was simply a way to tell her body: the day is ending now.

        2. Warm bath

        Short. Warm. Predictable.

        Not every night was peaceful, and not every bath was long. But the signal stayed the same.

        Day is done.
        We are winding down.

        3. Into pyjamas

        The changing ritual became part of the routine.

        Clean diaper. Soft pyjamas. Lights low.

        Zip pyjamas were always easier than snaps for us, especially during night changes.

        4. Feed while singing

        This was the part that made everything feel softer.

        In the dark or near-dark, white noise on, I fed her while singing the same songs every night.

        No bright lights.
        No scrolling.
        No trying to make the room exciting.

        Just feed, sing, breathe, repeat.

        5. Affirmations

        Every night, I said the same little phrases to her:

        You are loved.
        You are safe.
        Mama is always here.
        You are enough.

        At four months, she stared at my face while I said them.

        At one year, she started making sounds along with mine.

        At two years old, she says them with me, word for word.

        The routine did not make the regression disappear. But it gave her nervous system a consistent signal that sleep was safe and coming.

        In a developmental phase when everything else was changing, her night world stayed the same.

        Through the 4-month regression

        The 4-month regression is not something you fix in one night.

        It is a real developmental change in how your baby’s brain processes sleep. It passes — not because you perfectly solve it, but because her brain finishes what it started.

        What helped us was not dramatic.

        It was boring, consistent, and repeated every night.

        No lights at wake-ups

        No overhead lights.
        No lamps.
        No phone flashlight.

        A bright light tells the brain it is time to wake properly. We used the Hatch at its absolute lowest setting if we needed to see anything.

        The goal was simple: keep night feeling like night.

        Same response every time

        We fed, settled, and put her back down in the same way every time.

        Not because every wake-up looked exactly the same, but because predictability was the whole point.

        She was going through a developmental leap. Her daytime world was exploding with new information. Her night world needed to feel familiar.

        White noise all night

        The white noise helped mask the tiny sounds that suddenly started waking her.

        It also became part of the sleep cue. The sound meant: we are still in the night routine.

        For the full account of what the regression was like and exactly how we handled it, read the 4-month sleep regression post.

        The Hatch Go — for naps and travel

        The Hatch Go Portable Sound Machine was the version we used outside the room.

        It clipped to the stroller, the car seat, or the diaper bag.

        White noise cues become sleep cues over time. When the sound traveled with her, so did the signal that sleep was possible.

        Stroller naps, car naps, and trips away from home all became more manageable once we stopped hoping she would settle anywhere and started bringing one familiar sleep cue with us.

        Shop the Hatch Go portable sound machine on Amazon →

        Muslin swaddle blankets — early weeks only

        In the first weeks, muslin swaddle blankets were genuinely useful.

        A snug swaddle can help some newborns feel contained and reduce the startle reflex that wakes them from light sleep.

        We used Comfy Cubs Muslin Swaddle Blankets because they were large enough to swaddle properly and soft enough to keep using long after the swaddling phase passed.

        Once swaddling was done, they became everything else:

        Burp cloths.
        Light covers.
        Nursing covers.
        Stroller shade.
        Emergency clean-up cloths.

        The important safety note: stop swaddling as soon as your baby shows any signs of trying to roll. At that point, switch to a safer sleep option like a wearable sleep sack if you need an extra layer.

        Shop Comfy Cubs muslin swaddles on Amazon →

        What we did not use

        We did not use a sleep trainer.

        We did not use a graduated extinction method.

        We did not use a wake-windows app.

        We watched her.
        We responded to what she needed.
        We kept the environment consistent.
        We trusted the process.

        At two years old, she falls asleep after her routine, in her own space, without me in the room.

        The path there was not the one the internet usually recommends.

        It was the one that felt right for our family.

        Your instincts about your baby are not wrong. The environment and the consistency can do more than another method, another app, or another person telling you that you are creating bad habits.

        The honest summary

        If I were setting up baby sleep again, I would keep it simple.

        Dark room.
        Steady white noise.
        Safe sleep space.
        Same routine every night.
        No bright lights during wake-ups.
        Portable white noise for travel.
        Muslins in the early weeks, then reused for everything else.

        The goal was never perfect sleep.

        The goal was a baby who felt safe, parents who could survive the night, and a routine we could actually repeat.

        That was enough.

        📌 Save this and share it with any parent heading into the newborn sleep phase.

        Also on Mama Rooted

      • My Baby Would Only Sleep on Me. Here’s What We Did — and What Finally Let Me Put Her Down.

        My Baby Would Only Sleep on Me. Here’s What We Did — and What Finally Let Me Put Her Down.

        There was an afternoon when I did not move for three hours.

        Not because I could not.

        Because she was asleep on my chest, and I had learned — the hard way, more than once — that the moment I shifted my weight, adjusted my arm, or breathed too deliberately, her eyes would open.

        And then we would be back at the beginning. The whole settling process, all over again, from scratch.

        So I stayed still.

        For three hours.

        In the same position.

        While my arm went numb, my back ached, and I desperately needed to use the bathroom.

        If you are reading this at 2am with a baby on your chest who will not, under any circumstances, be put down — I see you.

        And I want to tell you something important before I tell you anything else.

        She is not broken. You are not doing it wrong.

        Her nervous system is doing exactly what it was designed to do.

        Why contact naps happen — and why they make complete sense

        Here is the thing I came back to again and again in those early weeks, especially on the days when I was exhausted, touched out, and convinced something was wrong.

        She had just come from the warmest, most regulated environment that exists.

        My heartbeat.

        My warmth.

        My smell.

        My breathing.

        These were the only constants she had ever known.

        And then suddenly she was in a world that was loud, bright, cold, and completely unfamiliar.

        When her nervous system got overwhelmed — when the world became too much — she looked for the one thing she knew for certain.

        Me.

        My smell. My warmth. The rise and fall of my chest.

        Those things told her body she was safe. They regulated her breathing. They slowed her heart rate.

        They were not a bad habit. They were not manipulation. They were not a sleep prop in the scary way the internet sometimes talks about it.

        They were biology.

        Understanding this did not make the numb arm feel better in the moment. But it changed how I responded to it.

        Instead of trying to fight what she needed, I started figuring out how to give it to her in a way that was also sustainable for me.

        A quick safety note before I go further: contact naps were always supervised. If I felt myself getting drowsy, I moved her to a safe sleep surface.

        ⚠️ Affiliate Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you. I only recommend things I personally used or carefully researched.

        What we tried first — and what did not work

        If there is a transfer technique on the internet, we tried it.

        The slow-motion lay-down.

        The wait-until-she-is-deeply-asleep method.

        The warm towel on the mattress.

        The hand-on-chest-to-maintain-pressure technique.

        Some of these worked sometimes.

        Most of them did not work most of the time.

        And the inconsistency was its own kind of exhausting, because every attempt felt like a gamble.

        And losing the gamble meant starting everything over.

        The days when she was overtired were the worst.

        On those days, contact was the only thing that worked.

        Not the cot.

        Not a swing.

        Not a swaddle on its own.

        Me.

        Specifically me.

        And once I stopped fighting that and started working with it, things got easier.

        The things that actually helped us

        The Boba Wrap — hands-free contact that kept us both sane

        The Boba Wrap was the thing that made contact naps survivable in those early weeks.

        The idea is simple:

        She got the contact, warmth, and closeness her nervous system needed.

        I got my hands back.

        That sounds small until you have spent days nap-trapped under a newborn and unable to eat, drink water, answer a message, fold laundry, or use the bathroom without restarting the entire nap.

        With the wrap, I could move through the house like a functioning person while she slept against my chest and felt completely held.

        This mattered more than I expected.

        When you are stuck in one position for hours, unable to do anything, the frustration builds in a way that affects the whole day.

        The wrap did not change what she needed.

        But it changed how I could meet it.

        She felt my heartbeat.

        I felt her settle.

        And I could actually take care of myself at the same time.

        For newborn contact naps, this is the thing I would tell every new mama to have ready before the baby arrives.

        Shop the Boba Wrap on Amazon →

        White noise — building a sleep cue she could take anywhere

        White noise was the other thing that shifted everything, and it worked in a way I did not expect.

        It was not just about blocking out sound — though it did that too.

        That matters when a door closing, a car outside, or someone moving around the house can undo a twenty-minute settling process.

        But over time, white noise became a signal.

        A cue her brain started to associate with sleep.

        Once that association built, the sound itself began doing some of the work that my presence had been doing alone.

        We used the Hatch Rest+ Sound Machine in the room — phone-controlled, so I never had to get up to adjust it mid-feed.

        And the Hatch Go clipped wherever we needed sleep to happen — the pram, the diaper bag, travel days, and later naps away from home.

        This was one of the most practical shifts we made.

        When the white noise went on, her body started to understand what came next.

        And that predictability made every transition easier, including the big one.

        Shop the Hatch Rest+ →
        Shop the Hatch Go →

        The gradual transition — not a method, a process

        We did not use a formal method to move her from contact naps to sleeping in her own space.

        What we did was gradual.

        And more importantly, it respected what she actually needed instead of trying to override it.

        The beginning of the transition was simple.

        Instead of trying to move her from my arms to a flat surface across the room, I started by lying down with her and then very slowly — over the course of minutes — shifting her beside me rather than underneath me.

        Small.

        Slow.

        No sudden changes.

        From there, we moved to the Baby Delight Beside Me Dreamer Bassinet, which sat right beside my bed.

        This was the piece that gave me what I was really looking for:

        A way to keep her close, responsive, and reassured — without needing to be physically underneath her for every sleep.

        I could reach her within seconds.

        She was close enough to sense me.

        But she was on her own separate sleep surface.

        The difference was significant.

        Not overnight.

        Gradually.

        But it worked because we were not fighting what she needed.

        We were finding a version of closeness she could accept without me being the mattress.

        Shop the Baby Delight Beside Me Dreamer Bassinet →

        What I want you to know if you are in this right now

        Contact napping is not a failure.

        It is not proof that you have ruined sleep.

        It is not something your baby is doing to manipulate you.

        It is your baby telling you, in the only language she has, that the world is a lot and you are the thing that makes it manageable.

        The transition comes. For every family, it looks different and happens at a different pace. What made it possible for us was not a strict method or a scheduled program.

        It was understanding what she actually needed, finding ways to meet it that were also sustainable for me, and making changes so gradually that her nervous system barely registered them.

        The wrap.

        The white noise.

        The bedside bassinet instead of a sleep space across the room.

        Three small things that gave her what she needed and gave me what I needed too.

        If you are in the still-for-three-hours stage right now — hang in there.

        This is the hard part.

        It does not last forever.

        And if you have questions about any of it, or you want to talk through what might work for your specific situation, reach out.

        I mean it.

        I am at mama-rooted.com/contact and I am happy to help.

        📌 Save this for any mama whose arms have not been free in days.

        You are not alone.

        Lots of love,
        Mama Rooted

        Also on Mama Rooted

      • How We Gently Night Weaned (Without a Single Night of Crying It Out)

        How We Gently Night Weaned (Without a Single Night of Crying It Out)

        ⚠️ Affiliate Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend things I personally used or carefully researched.

        There is a quiet point in your postpartum journey where night feeding shifts from a nutritional necessity to almost entirely about comfort. If you co-sleep and breastfeed to sleep, the thought of ending those night feeds can feel terrifying—especially if you refuse to use traditional sleep training methods.

        When my daughter hit nine months, I knew my body, my sleep, and my days were ready for a shift. But I was absolutely clear about one thing: I was not going cold turkey. I was not going to remove something she depended on overnight and leave her nervous system to figure it out alone.

        Instead, we did it slowly. So slowly it almost felt like nothing was happening. And then one day, around twelve months, I realized she hadn’t woken in the night in days.

        If you are currently in the thick of 2:00 AM wake-ups and dreading what comes next, here is the exact, three-phase framework we used to gently end night feeds on her timeline—and ours.

        Phase one: shorter feeds, not fewer

        I started with duration, not frequency. Instead of trying to drop a full feed, I just shortened each one.

        Five minutes became three.

        Three became two.

        Two became one.

        This took weeks, not days. I waited until each shorter duration felt settled and normal before I reduced it again.

        She barely noticed the early reductions — going from five minutes to three didn’t seem to register for her at all.

        The Phase 1 Protocol

        • The Goal: Reduce the duration of the feed, not the number of wake-ups.
        • The Pace: Hold at each new time limit for 5–7 days before dropping another minute.
        • The Method: Don’t guess the time in the dark. Use the dim clock on your baby monitor or the faint glow of your nightlight to track minutes accurately.

        It was only when we got down to around a minute that she started to notice something was different. At the one-minute mark, she’d come off the feed still unsettled—still needing to transition back to sleep. That’s when we moved into the next phase.

        Phase two: replacing the feed with another comfort

        I stayed with her and offered something else — patting her back slowly, rocking gently, singing the same songs from her bedtime routine.

        I want to be honest: this part was harder.

        Not dramatically hard, but harder.

        There were a few nights where she took longer to settle, where she fussed a bit before going down.

        We tried my husband taking over the settling at this stage to see if removing me from the equation would help. It didn’t — she was so attached to me for sleep that having him there instead of me made things worse, not better.

        She’d escalate immediately. So I stayed in it, which was tiring, but trying to force my husband into a role that confused and upset her felt counterproductive.

        What helped most during this phase:

        The white noise, always on. The Hatch Rest+ running all night masked the small sounds that would startle her awake just as she was drifting off. During the transition period when she was more easily disturbed, this mattered more than ever.

        The room staying dark. No lights, ever. The moment a light went on her brain would register waking and make settling ten times harder. We used the faint glow of the Hatch at its absolute lowest if I needed to see anything.

        Consistency in my response. I showed up the same way every time she woke — calm, quiet, present. I didn’t vary what I did or how long I stayed. Predictability was the whole point. She needed to know that I was still there.

        Phase three: dropping feeds one at a time, never all at once

        Once the shortened feeds felt stable I started reducing the number of wake-ups I’d feed at all — very gradually, one feed at a time, always keeping at least one comfort feed available.

        If she woke at 11pm and again at 2am and again at 5am, I might decide that the 11pm and 5am feeds would get the shortened but the 2am one — the deepest part of the night — stayed a full comfort feed for a while longer. Then over weeks, that one shortened too.

        This sounds more organised in writing than it was in practice.

        In reality it was intuitive and flexible. Some nights I fed more because she was teething or unwell or just seemed to genuinely need it.

        I didn’t hold rigidly to a plan on those nights. The gentleness was in the flexibility as much as the gradualness.

        By twelve months — she just stopped

        I didn’t have a moment where I declared the night feeds over. It was more that I noticed, one morning, that I couldn’t remember the last time she’d woken in the night.

        She had learned to self-settle.

        Not because we trained her to — because we gave her enough time and enough gradual change that her nervous system caught up on its own.

        She’d stir between sleep cycles, find her own way back, and sleep through. The comfort feed had become unnecessary because she’d built other ways of getting herself to sleep.

        I remember feeling two things simultaneously: relief and a small unexpected grief. That quiet intimacy of the night feeds — just the two of us in the dark — was over.

        I hadn’t known it was the last one when it happened.

        I wish I’d known.

        I’d have held on a little longer.

        The last feed — the bedtime one — at two years

        After the night feeds were gone, she kept one feed before bed.

        Part of the bedtime routine — after the bath, after the massage and the pyjamas, we’d read together (her favourites were Llama Llama Red Pajama and I Love You to the Moon and Back), then she’d nurse while I sang to her and said her affirmations, and then she’d sleep.

        That one stayed until she was two.

        About a month before I decided it was time, I started talking to her about it. Just casually, in the daytime, in plain language a toddler could understand.

        “Mama’s milk is going to go away soon. You’re such a big girl now. We’ll still have our bath and our songs and our cuddles — everything else stays the same. Just the milk is going to go.”

        I said some version of this most days for about a month. Not dramatically, not as a warning — just as information.

        Then one evening she just didn’t ask for it.

        We did the bath. The massage. The pyjamas. The songs. The affirmations. And she fell asleep.

        No request. No tears. No protest.

        The next night she did ask. I said, gently and calmly, that the milk was all gone now, that we’d talked about this, that everything else was still here. She looked at me for a moment. And then she lay down.

        That was it. Two years of breastfeeding, ended in a sentence.

        I cried a little, later, when she was asleep. She didn’t cry at all.

        Our 5 Favorite Bedtime Transition Books

        Replacing the nursing session with a highly engaging, rhythmic story is one of the best ways to ease a toddler away from the breast at bedtime. These are the five books that became our anchors:

        1. Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney: Her absolute favorite. The rhythmic, rhyming text is incredibly soothing, and she quickly learned every page by heart.
        2. I Love You to the Moon and Back by Amelia Hepworth: We ended almost every night with this one. It serves as a beautiful, calming love letter to the parent-child bond.
        3. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown: A classic for a reason. The slow, quiet pacing and darkening illustrations genuinely help little ones wind down.
        4. The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep by Carl-Johan Forssén Ehrlin: This book uses specific, gentle repetition and psychological relaxation cues woven into the story. More than a few nights, I fell asleep reading it too.
        5. Time for Bed by Mem Fox: Soft, rhythmic, and full of animal babies settling down for the night. Perfect for the final, winding-down part of the evening.

        What I want you to take from this

        We live in a culture that has very strong opinions about when and how breastfeeding should end.

        There are people who will tell you that comfort feeding at night is a habit you’re creating, that you need to stop by six months, by nine months, certainly by one year.

        I want to offer you a different frame.

        When you wean when you are both ready — when you follow the baby’s cues and your own instincts — it doesn’t have to be dramatic. It doesn’t have to be traumatic.

        It doesn’t have to involve nights of crying that leave you wondering if you’ve damaged something in your child.

        My daughter is two. She is confident and secure and good at sleeping. She falls asleep after her routine, in her own space.

        She got there not in spite of how we handled the night feeds — but because of it.

        When we wean when we are ready instead of when society tells us we should stop, the process becomes much simpler. Trust yourself. Trust your baby. She knows more than the books do about what she needs from you.

        Read the full series:

        Part 1: I Breastfed for 2 Years — The Honest Truth About All of It — the beginning, the hard weeks, the silverettes and the 2am feeds

        Part 2: The 4-Month Sleep Regression Almost Broke Us — what the regression actually is and how we got through it without sleep training

        Part 3: This post — how we removed the comfort feed, gently and on her timeline

        📌 Save this post to your Pinterest boards. Come back to it on the hard nights, or send it to a mama who is currently in the thick of night feeds and dreading what comes next. You’ve got this, mama. — Lots of love, Mama Rooted.