Most 9-month-olds no longer need calories overnight. By 8 to 9 months, babies can take in enough during the day to sustain them through the night, and pediatric feeding guidelines from UC Davis Health list no nighttime feeds for this age group. That means if your baby is still waking to eat, the habit is more about comfort and routine than hunger. The good news: you can change that pattern gradually over the course of about a week.
Why 9-Month-Olds Don’t Need Night Feeds
At 9 months, your baby needs roughly 750 to 900 calories per day. About 400 to 500 of those should come from breast milk or formula (around 24 ounces total), with the rest coming from solid foods. If your baby is eating three meals plus snacks and getting breast milk or formula at regular intervals during the day, their caloric needs are fully met before bedtime. Night waking at this point is typically driven by a learned association between feeding and falling back to sleep, not by genuine hunger.
Make Sure Daytime Nutrition Is Solid First
Before you drop night feeds, take a close look at what your baby eats during the day. If daytime calories are low, your baby may genuinely wake hungry. A well-fed 9-month-old’s day generally looks something like this:
- Breakfast: 2 to 4 ounces of cereal or a scrambled egg, plus mashed fruit, plus breast milk or 4 to 6 ounces of formula
- Mid-morning snack: Breast milk or 4 to 6 ounces of formula with diced cheese or cooked vegetables
- Lunch: Yogurt, cottage cheese, or pureed meat with cooked vegetables, plus breast milk or formula
- Afternoon snack: A whole grain cracker or teething biscuit with soft fruit or yogurt
- Dinner: Diced poultry, meat, or tofu with cooked vegetables, soft pasta or potato, and fruit, plus breast milk or formula
- Before bed: Breast milk or 6 to 8 ounces of formula
If your baby’s daytime intake looks thin compared to this, start by adding more food and milk during waking hours. Give it a few days before tackling the night feeds. That pre-bedtime feed is especially important: a full feeding right before sleep gives your baby the best shot at lasting through the night comfortably.
Gradual Weaning for Breastfed Babies
If your baby currently nurses for less than 5 minutes at night, you can stop the feed entirely and resettle them with other soothing techniques (more on those below). Short feeds like this are mostly comfort nursing, and removing them cleanly tends to work better than trying to shave off 30 seconds at a time.
If your baby nurses for longer than 5 minutes, a gradual approach over 5 to 7 nights works well. Reduce the feeding time by 2 to 5 minutes every other night. So if your baby typically nurses for 10 minutes, feed for 8 minutes for two nights, then 6 minutes for two nights, then 4, and so on. After each shortened feed, resettle your baby without the breast. By the end of the week, the feed is short enough to drop altogether.
This gradual approach also protects your milk supply. Your body adjusts to the reduced demand slowly rather than dealing with an abrupt overnight change. If you’re concerned about supply, you can add an extra daytime nursing session or pump briefly in the morning for a few days while your body recalibrates.
Gradual Weaning for Bottle-Fed Babies
The same principle applies to bottles, but you’re reducing volume instead of time. If your baby drinks 60 ml (about 2 ounces) or less at night, you can stop the feed outright and resettle them. That small an amount isn’t providing meaningful nutrition.
If your baby drinks more than 60 ml, reduce the amount by 20 to 30 ml every other night. For example, if the usual bottle is 180 ml, offer 150 ml for two nights, then 120 ml for two nights, then 90 ml, then 60 ml. Once you reach 60 ml or less, stop offering the bottle entirely. This whole process takes about a week. Resettle your baby after each smaller feed so they begin learning to fall back asleep without a full bottle.
How to Resettle Without Feeding
The hardest part of night weaning isn’t the feeding itself. It’s what you do instead when your baby wakes and expects milk. Having a clear plan makes a big difference.
When your baby wakes, pause before rushing in. Give them a minute or two to see if they settle on their own. If they don’t, try a progression of low-key soothing: place a hand on their belly or chest, talk quietly, or offer a pacifier. If that’s not enough, pick them up and hold them still at your shoulder without rocking yet. Then try gentle rocking or patting. The idea is to start with the least amount of intervention and slowly increase it. Stick with each technique for about 5 minutes before moving to the next one.
Keep the room dark and your voice low. Minimize eye contact and avoid turning on lights or bringing your baby to a different room. You want everything about the interaction to signal “it’s still nighttime” rather than creating the stimulation of a daytime wake-up.
Having a Partner Take Over
If you’re breastfeeding, one of the most effective strategies is having a non-nursing partner handle the night wake-ups during the weaning process. Babies associate the nursing parent with feeding, and that association is strong at 9 months. When a different person responds, the baby doesn’t expect milk in the same way, which can make resettling easier and faster.
This works best when the partner commits to handling all wake-ups for at least 5 to 7 consecutive nights. The nursing parent may need to sleep in another room, or at least stay in bed and let the partner respond first. It can be a rough few nights for whoever is on duty, but babies often adjust faster with this approach than when the person they associate with feeding is the one trying to say no.
What About a Dream Feed?
A dream feed means feeding your baby while they’re still asleep, usually between 10 p.m. and midnight, to “top them off” before your own bedtime. The idea is that it extends their longest sleep stretch into the hours when you’re also sleeping. There’s some logic behind it, but the evidence is modest. One study found that combining a late-night feed with other sleep-friendly practices (like minimizing light and stimulation at night) helped babies sleep from midnight to 5 a.m. by eight weeks. But the researchers couldn’t separate the effect of the dream feed from the other strategies.
If you’re already doing a dream feed and it seems to help, there’s no rush to drop it. But if you’re considering adding one as part of night weaning, it’s probably more effective to focus on the daytime nutrition and gradual reduction strategies above. A dream feed can also become its own hard-to-break habit if it continues too long.
What to Expect During the Transition
The first two or three nights are almost always the hardest. Your baby may cry more than usual, wake more frequently, or take longer to resettle. This is normal. Most babies show significant improvement by night four or five, and many are sleeping through (or close to it) within a week.
Some babies go through a brief phase of eating more during the day to compensate for the lost nighttime calories, which is exactly what you want. If your baby seems hungrier in the morning or wants an extra daytime feed, follow their lead.
Timing matters too. Avoid starting night weaning during a period of big change: teething flare-ups, illness, travel, or starting daycare. Pick a stretch of relatively calm, predictable days, ideally a week when both parents (if applicable) can absorb some lost sleep. Starting on a Friday night gives you the weekend to recover from the roughest nights before the work week.