Gently got my daughter to STTN

[EzzysMom]

I see so many hard stories here (and I've posted my own sob ones) that I wanted to share that my daughter has finally gotten to where she can STTN and is now night-weaned. We co-sleep. She was finally ready for it and we discussed it last week and she now knows we don't nurse until the sun comes up again. She's 21 months now. When she was younger and we tried she clearly didn't get it and did not accept it (lots of crying when we tried at all) so we stopped. But this time she gives one short 'wah' if any protest when I remind her to wait for the sun, lays down, I tuck her back under the covers and we all go to sleep. She's stopped waking up for one of her previous nursing sessions and although she's not sleeping quite through till wake up time it's miles away from where we were months ago. So finally, yah!

I think if I told this story to myself when she was 4 months though I would have thought I'd die before we got here She used to nurse a ton at night and wake up. I'm glad we waited until she was ready and it was relatively painless for us all in the end. Of course now I type this and I bet she'll regress

[bettyjones]

Good for you & her!

[ps4624]

I am so happy for you and insane with jealousy at the same time! DD is only 12 months old, nowhere near ready to be night weaned, and I am exhausted. I hope and pray some day I can post a similar story!

[kgreenemama]

Thanks for sharing your success! You give the rest of us some hope! DS is just month older that your DD, and we're not done with the night nursing, but I love the idea of talking him through it. I'm going to start trying that. In general these days, transitions are difficult. Just stopping his indoor activities to go outside causes him frustration. Then once we're outside and he's having a ball, it's torture to get him back in. So I know he's really vulnerable right now. I keep trying to explain... "Okay, one more snowman and we'll go inside and make lunch..." That kind of thing. I KNOW he'll eventually get it. So maybe he'll get the "nummies are sleeping" idea too.

[Emmery'sMom]

Great job on gentle and successful night-weaning

[avent]

We're in the same boat except it didn't work. 21-month old DD was crying and screaming a lot when we tried the same thing, including discussions she seemed to understand. I think we'll try once a month until we get there. We're exhausted. But I'm happy for you and I hope to join you soon!

Adding: We didn't have the same discussion about "waiting for the sun" though, so I'm going to try that. I think it's more concrete than my "baa went to sleep" idea. So thanks...

[EzzysMom]

Thanks ladies, I realized later that it might come accross as bragging and I hoped not. I just wanted to actually post and say that there might be an end in sight. Unfortunately the end is different for all kids, but all my friend's kids all sleep already, though they went through various CIO to get there. It was just amazing to me that _finally_ she actually seemed ready even though I felt like we would never get there.

The months previously have been filled with really tough weeks upon weeks of many wakeups. I feel your pain!

I had tried talking to her about it previously and she just freaked out, so the time was right

[karebear217]

Congrats! We recently made a similar breakthrough
But, I'll tell you what, it happened right around the same time I got pregnant - like within a couple of days - and I'm pretty sure it was God's way of saying, "Honey, I know you and I know you can't handle being sleep deprived and pregnant, so I'm just going to take care of this one for you" I'll take it!