Nightweaning / Nightwaking

[Wisteriacow]

For several months now I have been the only one who gets up with DS (who will be 14months next week) at night. And it's become habit for me to automatically get him out of the crib and nurse him until he falls back asleep. Sometimes this takes 5 minutes, sometimes it's 20. I know he isn't waking up just from hunger, if he was he'd be eating more. But I don't know what is causing the disruptions. Habit? Teething? Road noise?
DH has been pushing me to nightwean but I'm afraid it won't change anything. Has anyone else nightweaned when nursing wasn't necessarily the issue? Would it be too confusing to do a partial nightwean? I don't mind getting up 1x a night for a good nursing session but the nights where I'm up every 1-4 hours for a 5 minute snack/comfort session are wearing me out.
And how do you handle comforting at night if you stop nursing? I've read the Jay Gordon method and I guess I'm afraid of a scenario where DS will wake up from a nightmare or something and be upset but I'll assume he wants to nurse and not pick him up thereby upsetting him more? (I openly admit that I tend to err a bit too much on the softer side of parenting because I did not have a happy childhood and I constantly worry about inflicting the same emotional scars on DS.)

[rzberrymom]

Have you tried bringing him into your bed and nursing him lying down on your side? I got the most amount of sleep that way, since I didn't have to get in and out of bed and we would both drift right back to sleep. After a while, I didn't even bother changing sides and the sleep was even better--just nursed her on one side all night and my body seemed to adjust.

[bodhitree]

Have you considered trying to find other ways of comforting your DS during the night? If nursing is the way he always goes to sleep, he may believe that he has to nurse every time he wakes up during the night. My DD used to be like that. We've been using the No-Cry Sleep Solution and working on teaching her other ways of going back to sleep. After a couple of months of working on it, we've made progress: she now actually goes back to sleep much more quickly when she is snuggled on someone's chest than she does while nursing. She's sleeping longer stretches, and I think before too much longer she will learn to go back to sleep more independently. I can now tell when she's really hungry and when she isn't. She is not night-weaned, but now most nights she only nurses 1-3 times instead of 5-10 times like she used to.

I know it's popular in these parts to recommend cosleeping and side-lying nursing, but for us, that just kept making the problem worse because DD thought she needed to nurse at every waking, which meant I got woken up about every 1.5 hours all night, almost every night. To put it mildly, that did not work well for me.

Since your DH is the one pushing to night-wean, maybe you could get him to take over some of the nighttime parenting? That's what we're doing. My DH handles nighttime parenting for the first part of the night, then I take over. I think that has been crucial in helping my DD learn to go back to sleep without nursing.

[Wisteriacow]

We moved DS to his own room when he was around 5months. We all started getting better sleep that way. We'll still bring him to our bed once in a while if he's having a particularly off night but he's definitely much more settled in his crib.
I think part of the problem is retraining myself not to automatically stick my boob in his mouth at night. I'm so sleep deprived that it's just automatic.

[lifeguard]

I have been working on nightweaning ds the past 1.5 weeks. He seems to be getting it & overall we are all getting more sleep. Last night he woke frequently (we think he was cold) but dh was able to deal with it & that was HUGE for me to not have to be the one "on" all night long.

I am following the Dr. Jay Gordon method but I stretched the first 3 days a little longer than recommended. Also if he is REALLY upset I will bf him even if it is within the 7 designated hours.

[rzberrymom]

Originally Posted by bodhitree

I know it's popular in these parts to recommend cosleeping and side-lying nursing, but for us, that just kept making the problem worse because DD thought she needed to nurse at every waking, which meant I got woken up about every 1.5 hours all night, almost every night.

But, the OP's child is not next to her and yet he's still waking many times. So, to say that co-sleeping and side-lying nursing causes this kind of waking seems a little off--in this case, it seems like bringing the child into the bed could help very much (since he's waking anyways).

OP, since you're happy with him in his own bed, what about bringing his little bed into your room? We have a twin size bed for my DD that is right next to our bed--we all have our own space, but I can get to her without having to wake up all the way. Might make latching on a little less likely to cause waking for you.

[bodhitree]

Originally Posted by rzberrymom

But, the OP's child is not next to her and yet he's still waking many times. So, to say that co-sleeping and side-lying nursing causes this kind of waking seems a little off--in this case, it seems like bringing the child into the bed could help very much (since he's waking anyways).

I didn't say that co-sleeping and side-lying nursing are causing the OP's problems, I just wanted to point out that it sounded like that might not be the solution, since it won't break the pattern of a baby needing to nurse every time he/she awakes, which sounds like it is bothering the OP. If the LO can learn to go back to sleep in another way, it will make the OP's life a lot easier, I think.

[bodhitree]

Originally Posted by Wisteriacow

I think part of the problem is retraining myself not to automatically stick my boob in his mouth at night. I'm so sleep deprived that it's just automatic.

I know how that goes. It got a lot easier for me when DH started doing more of the nighttime duties.

[Wisteriacow]

Originally Posted by rzberrymom

OP, since you're happy with him in his own bed, what about bringing his little bed into your room? We have a twin size bed for my DD that is right next to our bed--we all have our own space, but I can get to her without having to wake up all the way. Might make latching on a little less likely to cause waking for you.

DS used to be in an Arm's Reach but it wasn't working for us. DH is a loud sleeper (snoring, mumbling, tossing) and it was disrupting DS's sleep. In general he's done well being in his own room. Lately though he's had a bit of regression and I'm not sure why. I want to work back to him being able to sleep 5-7 hours at a stretch, nurse and then sleep again. Last night was a bad night and I think it was because he didn't see Daddy before bed and he was constipated.

[Red Pajama]

At 14 months, my dd was up every few hours. She has been like that, with me sleeping in 2-4 hour blocks between her waking for a long time. Until very recently, all I ever did was nurse her back to sleep. Recently (she's over two now) she started taking much longer to nurse to sleep, so I've started nursing for 5-10 minutes, and then rocking her for a bit. She'll ask to nurse, fuss, but I rock and sing, and once quiet I'll put her in her bed. Lately, she's been accepting this and going back to sleep after I put her in her crib. this has seemed to help with her night waking, although It's only been about a week so it could be a fluke.

For me, nightweaning is kind of pointless. She's going to ask to nurse. Husband works and gets up very early (when he's not on break). It's going to be me up doing the work anyway, I might as well do it my way.