Help! The 5 a.m. nursing session is kicking my ....

[Halfasianmomma]

...and I don't know what to do!

DD (20 months) is basically down to nursing when I get home from work at 5 p.m., then nursing to sleep at 8 p.m., and the nursing upon waking, sometimes at 4 or 5 a.m....then *she* manages to go back to sleep, while I stay awake wondering why I can't sleep.

On the week-ends, there's more nursing, but overall that's our schedule.

Any suggestions on how to cut out that nursing session, or delay it, without weaning altogether? (though I have to admit, I'm starting to be just a little bit done with all this... )

[spirit4ever]

My 19month dd is also waking at 5 to nurse, and i have a hard time sleeping through it, and now she's up at 6! No advice, just wanted to say we're in the same boat!!!!

[BarefootinBrooklyn]

Same boat here, and growing very weary of it. DD wakes at 5 to nurse (and sometimes a couple other times in the night) and nurses on and off until 6:30 when she decides she's ready to wake up. I don't get back to sleep...I would really like to drop this nursing, but it seems to be her favorite. Would also love to hear some advice from mamas who were able to gently shift this early morning nurse to cuddles for comfort...I'm drained.

[rjhmomma]

I hear you!

Oh yes, the delight of being awakened at 4:30 with my 22 month old,co-sleeping DS demanding to nurse. Not just one breast, then he wants to switch, and then switch again, and so on until I lose my cool and get up and turn on all the lights and radio and remind myself that swearing and cursing is not an effective strategy for curbing this behaviour.

When I'm awake and rational I plan to check our total sleep hours, nap included and see how it adds up. Maybe this early waking is the product of too much nap?

It all started to go weird when the clocks jumped forward last week. Our bedtime has slipped to 9pm, which makes sense, but our waking time has moved to 5am which is bloody ridiculous and makes no sense to me, since we were previously sleeping 8pm to 6am. Where did the extra 2 hours of sleep go!????!

[sarahtdubb]

nak

I'm struggling with this, too. When we nightweaned DS, I made 4 am my cut off time, meaning I would nurse him after 4 am. I originally made it 5, but found that DS went ballistic if I said no to milk after 4, and it just wasn't worth the fight.

Now I have a 5 week old, and my mornings usually go like this-

around 3am-- baby wakes up, eats, mommy asleep 3:30

4/4:30- toddler wakes and nurses, mommy to sleep 10 minutes later

5/6 toddler nurses again, maybe goes back to sleep

6/6:30- baby nurses, mom is up.

So the last hours of my night are made up of rolling from side to side giving people milk, hoping they don't wake up at the same time (which sometimes they do, at which point I lie on my back and it's a little awkward!!)

I'm having trouble thinking of how to cut out the toddler's early morning nursing because when I try he goes nuts and doesn't back to sleep, and then we're stuck being awake at 4 am. Plus when he gets back he cries and wakes up the baby! oy.

So this is what I'm trying-- I am making the nursing time shorter and shorter. From several minutes down to just long enough to sing the ABCs (we havent gotten there yet). My hope is that eventually I can work it down so that its sooo short that we can cut it out. I may be overly hopeful, but something's gotta give.

Also, I know that I no longer had a let-down when nursing my son before the baby was born, so this might not be relevant to you.. but I've found I have more success cutting him off when I do it BEFORE I have my let-down. Once the let down comes that milk is flowing and DS does not want to stop without a fight.