Most 9-month-olds are physically ready to sleep through the night without a feed. At this age, babies need 750 to 900 calories per day, and if they’re getting enough breast milk, formula, and solid food during daylight hours, those overnight calories are no longer nutritionally necessary. That doesn’t mean dropping night feeds happens overnight, though. A gradual approach over one to two weeks tends to work best for both baby and parent.
Why 9 Months Is a Good Time
By 9 months, your baby’s stomach can hold enough food to sustain them for a long stretch of sleep. About 400 to 500 of their daily calories should still come from breast milk or formula (roughly 24 ounces or 720 mL per day), with the rest coming from solid foods. If your baby is eating three meals of solids and getting regular milk feeds during the day, the nutritional reason for a 2 a.m. feed has largely disappeared.
What often keeps night feeds going at this age isn’t hunger. It’s habit. Your baby has learned to associate feeding with falling back to sleep, and that association is the real thing you’re working to change.
How Sleep Associations Keep Night Feeds Going
Babies cycle between light and deep sleep multiple times each night, just like adults. The difference is that a baby who always falls asleep while nursing or drinking a bottle expects that same condition every time they surface into light sleep. When they wake at 1 a.m. and the breast or bottle isn’t there, they cry for it, not necessarily because they’re hungry but because it’s the only way they know how to fall back asleep.
This is why night weaning works best when it’s paired with a shift in how your baby falls asleep at bedtime. If you can help your baby learn to drift off in their crib without actively feeding, they’re far more likely to resettle on their own when they wake between sleep cycles. Putting your baby down drowsy but awake, after a consistent bedtime routine, is the single most effective change you can make alongside reducing feeds.
Gradual Weaning for Breastfed Babies
If your baby typically nurses for more than 5 minutes during a night feed, reduce the feeding time by 2 to 5 minutes every second night. So a 10-minute feed becomes 8 minutes for two nights, then 6 minutes for the next two, then 4, and so on. Over the course of 5 to 7 nights, you’ll reach a point where the feed is so short it’s barely worth waking for, and many babies simply stop rousing for it.
The key is consistency. Use a clock or your phone to track the time rather than guessing. When you unlatch your baby, use gentle patting or shushing to help them resettle without more nursing. The first few nights may involve some protesting, but the gradual reduction gives your baby’s body time to adjust its expectations.
Gradual Weaning for Bottle-Fed Babies
The approach for formula-fed babies follows the same logic but uses volume instead of time. If your baby drinks more than 60 mL (about 2 ounces) at night, reduce the amount by 20 to 30 mL every second night. A baby who normally takes a 180 mL bottle would get 150 mL for two nights, then 120 mL, then 90 mL, continuing until the feed is small enough to drop entirely.
Some parents find it helpful to have the reduced bottle already prepared and capped so there’s no temptation to top it up during a bleary-eyed 3 a.m. waking. Once you’ve reached a very small volume, you can try offering a few sips of water instead, or simply soothing your baby back to sleep without any liquid at all.
Making Daytime Calories Count
Night weaning only works if your baby is genuinely getting enough to eat during the day. At 9 months, a good rhythm looks something like three meals of solid food plus three to four breast or bottle feeds spread across waking hours. Think of it as front-loading calories: the more your baby eats between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m., the less their body will prompt them to eat at midnight.
If your baby is a light eater with solids, focus on calorie-dense options like avocado, nut butters (thinly spread), full-fat yogurt, and well-cooked egg. A slightly larger milk feed right before the bedtime routine can also help bridge the gap. You’re not stuffing your baby. You’re redistributing the same calories they were already consuming, just shifting them to daylight hours.
What to Do at the Night Waking Itself
Once you’ve reduced the feed to a minimal amount (or decided to drop it entirely), your baby will likely still wake out of habit for several nights. This is normal. When they cry, wait a minute or two before going in. Many babies fuss briefly and fall back asleep on their own if given the chance.
If your baby is genuinely upset, go in and offer comfort without picking them up if possible. A hand on the chest, gentle patting, quiet shushing. The goal is to be present and reassuring while teaching your baby that nighttime wakings don’t come with a feed anymore. Some parents prefer to have the non-feeding partner handle these wakings, since the baby is less likely to expect milk from someone who doesn’t smell like it.
Most families see significant improvement within a week of consistent effort. Some babies adjust in three or four nights. Others, particularly those with a strong feed-to-sleep association, may take closer to two weeks.
When to Pause Night Weaning
Not every week is the right week to start. Hold off if your baby is sick, cutting teeth, adjusting to a new caregiver, going through a major developmental leap (like learning to crawl or pull to stand), or not gaining weight well. These disruptions temporarily increase your baby’s need for comfort and calories, and pushing through them tends to backfire.
If you’ve already started weaning and your baby gets a cold or a new tooth breaks through, it’s fine to pause for a few days and resume where you left off. You won’t lose all your progress. Just pick back up at the last reduced feed length or volume once things settle down, rather than going back to full feeds if you can avoid it.
Separating Feeding From the Bedtime Routine
One change that makes the entire process smoother: move the last feed of the evening earlier in the bedtime routine. Instead of nursing or giving a bottle as the very last step before sleep, offer it before the bath or before books. This creates a gap between feeding and falling asleep, which weakens the association over time. A good sequence might be: feed, bath, pajamas, book, song, into the crib drowsy but awake.
This small shift often has an outsized effect. Babies who learn to fall asleep independently at bedtime are dramatically more likely to resettle themselves during the night without needing a feed to get there.