Weaning is my least favorite part of having babies—it’s even worse than morning sickness! I said this to my husband this morning.
In a timely fashion, a question came in from the community regarding my take on toddler breastfeeding and dental development:
Hi, Nikko! I was wondering if you had any thoughts on breastfeeding at night for toddlers as breastmilk contains carbohydrates. Do you feel the benefits from melatonin in breastmilk outweigh the cons of consuming carbohydrates after sundown? I’d love to hear your thoughts or if you’ve come across any research! Thanks!
For context of where I am at: My 3yo is still nursing with her baby brother (I recently shared a bit about tandem nursing here), but during my pregnancy I night-weaned her.
This was after the experience of deciding to night wean her older brother after she was born… this time around, I thought I‘d better do it before the next was born.
The sweet thing is she has nursed with both her older brother, and her younger brother.
But on days like today, I do look forward to the day this relationship with her shifts away from nursing altogether! With the knowing we will grow together in the stages beyond it. I remember also looking forward to it with my two older children who are already weaned.
Toddler breastfeeding, an age-old tradition.
So several things come to mind with today’s question.
First, from the research on cavities, the majority of today’s toddlers who visit the dentist have cavities by age 3 regardless of breastfeeding status at that time.
So, to me, it seems there is something bigger going on. Weaning a toddler to reduce their risk of cavities (reduce, not eliminate), doesn’t seem like a solid or complete plan for dental health to me.
As I shared in the original post, the melatonin content is really important for its pain relieving, antioxidant, and circadian rhythm synchronizing qualities during all the stages of dental development.
What I didn’t have time to get into in that post is that daytime milk is rich in endocannabinoids that have similar qualities as melatonin.
For little babies, that nighttime nurse is irreplaceable because they don’t make their own melatonin, but toddlers make tons of their own melatonin, so it there may be more flexibility with sleeping through those nighttime nursing sessions.
I’ve seen many families use night-weaning or day-weaning as a practical stepping-stone towards full weaning.
Breastfeeding is about much more than nutrition, and so, weaning is much more complicated than simply replacing the milk with food.
With regard to the specifics of what is actually in the breastmilk if you were to break it down into parts, that varies across the different stages of breastfeeding and season:
summer colostrum may have higher levels of carbohydrate than winter colostrum (maybe mature breastmilk, too?)
foremilk has higher carbohydrate content than hindmilk (so try not to stop the feeds early! I know this can be difficult with a toddler, but I’ve seen a lot of moms that pop their baby off before the baby is ready and then that baby wants to nurse again and again and again… whereas a more patient mom can let her baby nurse all the way through several letdowns of the hindmilk and that baby will remain satisfied on the higher fat/protein content and not need to nurse again as soon)
milk across the day tends to get more concentrated (lower water content) in terms of vitamins, fat, and protein
across the breastfeeding journey as a whole, the water volume of milk tends to decrease so the milk becomes more concentrated allowing older babies to can get more goods in less time
Also, I’ve read it’s thought to be the lower amount of salivation at night, not necessarily the level of carbohydrates in the milk, that may contribute to the slightly higher risk of cavities in toddlers who still breastfeed at night.
This area of research is limited in terms of the knowledge base of those designing and funding the studies (so factors like hydration status, sunlight exposure, time in nature, cortisol levels, daycare status, etc aren’t yet studied in detail as far as issues I imagine could be confounding the toddler cavity data sets). Plus there are always ethical concerns with studying humans, let alone babies, to either prove/disprove any particular hypothesis.
Keeping in mind the end goal is full maturation of baby’s circadian rhythm… we know this happens when sleep, meal-timing, and elimination are all happening fairly independently of the mother:
Several solid meals per day
No breastfeeding
Naps only about as often as an adult needs to nap (usually more in the summer)
Sleeping through the night (but likely with more interruptions in the long nights of winter)
Successfully voiding in a consistent schedule and in the appropriate place
Therefore, weaning is itself part of the maturation process of the circadian rhythm.
I shared more about the stages of circadian development in my recent workshop, which you can join here as a paid or trial member:
How have you handled weaning with your children? I’d love to know what has worked/not worked for you! Even though I’ve done it twice now, I still have 2 babies on the boobies and know eventually this will come to an end for each of them. How to do it more gracefully? Share your tips (or questions if you have them) 👇
Absolutely, Amy! Our IG conversations definitely helped light the fire to starting this new little daily series where I can jump through these topics more quickly than in my main posts. Here’s where you can go through them all if you want: https://www.brighterdaysdarkernights.com/s/daily-short-posts/archive?sort=new Since you signed up a while ago, you probably aren’t on the list to get email updates for these, but if you go to your settings you can toggle them on. Or just catch them whenever from the archive or getting the links in my story. I might start sending out a weekly digest with links to the best ones, but I haven’t fully committed to that idea yet. Will keep you posted as I work out the system! It’s lovely to have a friend like to you walk through these years learning and sharing with, even though we don’t ever bump into each other irl 🧡
Hello Nikko. I love everything about this indepth post. I am past nursing, but nursed three at once over a 4 or 5 year period. Twins with serious birth trauma, toddler who eventually said "Mom, I'm done." I think she was three. One of the twins was not able to latch on. I did everything.
All of it is a very long story but a fulfilling and challenging experience in all ways. I don't think there is any right way to do it. Children are smart, moms are smart, our bodies know what to do.
Super cool to connect with you. My kids are adults and will not be leaving the family nest soon, I enjoy checkin in on other moms from time to time.
You sound wonderful. Keep writing. Moms need this. Thank you!
So from a circadian perspective you’ve found that eating breastmilk (specifically carbohydrates) at night isn’t detrimental to toddlers, as it is for adults, until they’re showing most signs of the circadian maturation you mentioned at the end of the post?
Do you find it makes more sense to night-wean before day-weaning to support their circadian and meal-timing rhythms?
My 20mo still nurses quite a bit during both day and night 😅 and I’m definitely not ready to fully wean anytime soon, but I want to support his circadian health as much as possible!
Optimal can be elusive, but each family usually finds what works best for them through these stages 🧡 I would be happy to do a 1-1 consult to get more into what’s happening, what’s working, ways to move closer to your ideal: https://nikkokennedy.com.
I loved reading this! Thank you for your insight, Nikko! ❤️
Absolutely, Amy! Our IG conversations definitely helped light the fire to starting this new little daily series where I can jump through these topics more quickly than in my main posts. Here’s where you can go through them all if you want: https://www.brighterdaysdarkernights.com/s/daily-short-posts/archive?sort=new Since you signed up a while ago, you probably aren’t on the list to get email updates for these, but if you go to your settings you can toggle them on. Or just catch them whenever from the archive or getting the links in my story. I might start sending out a weekly digest with links to the best ones, but I haven’t fully committed to that idea yet. Will keep you posted as I work out the system! It’s lovely to have a friend like to you walk through these years learning and sharing with, even though we don’t ever bump into each other irl 🧡
Hello Nikko. I love everything about this indepth post. I am past nursing, but nursed three at once over a 4 or 5 year period. Twins with serious birth trauma, toddler who eventually said "Mom, I'm done." I think she was three. One of the twins was not able to latch on. I did everything.
All of it is a very long story but a fulfilling and challenging experience in all ways. I don't think there is any right way to do it. Children are smart, moms are smart, our bodies know what to do.
Super cool to connect with you. My kids are adults and will not be leaving the family nest soon, I enjoy checkin in on other moms from time to time.
You sound wonderful. Keep writing. Moms need this. Thank you!
Thank you for sharing, and for the encouragement to keep writing! It’s nice to hear a story from your vantage point beyond nursing.
Thank you for the post response!
So from a circadian perspective you’ve found that eating breastmilk (specifically carbohydrates) at night isn’t detrimental to toddlers, as it is for adults, until they’re showing most signs of the circadian maturation you mentioned at the end of the post?
Do you find it makes more sense to night-wean before day-weaning to support their circadian and meal-timing rhythms?
My 20mo still nurses quite a bit during both day and night 😅 and I’m definitely not ready to fully wean anytime soon, but I want to support his circadian health as much as possible!
Optimal can be elusive, but each family usually finds what works best for them through these stages 🧡 I would be happy to do a 1-1 consult to get more into what’s happening, what’s working, ways to move closer to your ideal: https://nikkokennedy.com.