For 17.5 months my DD woke every 45 min -1.5 hrs all night long. Or worse, she wanted to nurse continuously. My body ached from lying in only one position all night. I hated nursing my DD, especially for nap/bedtime and loathed what should have been a time of sweet connection. My marriage suffered - I was grumpy and cranky nearly all the time and resentful of my Dh's sleep.
The last month has been BLISS!
My DD now sleeps "thru the night", from the time we nurse to sleep at about 9pm till the sun comes up at about 5:30/6am. She might wake occasionally, but it no longer wakes me up or if it does she doesn't require anything from me to go back to sleep. We can watch a whole movie after she goes to bed without being interupted 2-3 times or we can go to bed with her and get 8 heavenly hours of sleep. Last night she did wake me up for a minute... felt around with her hands until she found my face and then gave me a big kiss before snuggling back down and going back to sleep. 
What did we do? Dr. Jay Gordon Nightweaning.
I was VERY apprehensive about the process and stalled for weeks. I thought it would be traumatic for everyone involved and I had no confidence it would work. When I finally "hit bottom" as I think of it, and my Dh was begging me to at least try and and was completely on board with supporting me all night if needed... we started. We went VERY slowly and even more gradually than Dr. Gordon's plan and took a total of about 3 weeks. But there were no nights of hours of crying. There was very little crying at all - I think I recall maybe 2-3 nights, not consecutive, of 10 minutes max once we were in the no-boob-at-all phase. Don't get me wrong, it was rough, but in no way the traumatic experience I feared.
I'm writing this post b/c this forum helped me on so many nights when I thought I was going to lose it. Just knowing that there were other families that truly understood what it was like and were still choosing to comfort their babies all night long was so helpful. And every once in a while I'd read about a family that finally figured out how to help their child sleep and I'd get a surge of hope, thinking *someday* I will get more sleep. "This too shall pass." I know that nightweaning isn't going to be every family's answer. I know not every family is comfortable with the idea. I can remember reading about nightweaning and thinking "well that's great for them, but it'd never work for us". Well it did and my incredible non-sleeping child has turned into a sleep-thru-the-nighter!
And I feel so blessed that there really was an alternative to CIO. My DD is still comforted all night long by snuggling with Mama and Papa - we just showed her another way to get that comfort other than nursing. I'm glad I waited as long as we did b/c she could understand what we were telling her at night about the sun and the boobies sleeping. She still loves her boobie during daylight hours, she still nurses to sleep for nap and bedtime, and our nursing relationship is once again loving. As it should be.
Anyway, for those still in the depths of sleep deprivation - there IS hope. Sometimes in places you didn't think could possibly help. This too shall pass. You WILL sleep again.
The last month has been BLISS!
My DD now sleeps "thru the night", from the time we nurse to sleep at about 9pm till the sun comes up at about 5:30/6am. She might wake occasionally, but it no longer wakes me up or if it does she doesn't require anything from me to go back to sleep. We can watch a whole movie after she goes to bed without being interupted 2-3 times or we can go to bed with her and get 8 heavenly hours of sleep. Last night she did wake me up for a minute... felt around with her hands until she found my face and then gave me a big kiss before snuggling back down and going back to sleep. What did we do? Dr. Jay Gordon Nightweaning.
I was VERY apprehensive about the process and stalled for weeks. I thought it would be traumatic for everyone involved and I had no confidence it would work. When I finally "hit bottom" as I think of it, and my Dh was begging me to at least try and and was completely on board with supporting me all night if needed... we started. We went VERY slowly and even more gradually than Dr. Gordon's plan and took a total of about 3 weeks. But there were no nights of hours of crying. There was very little crying at all - I think I recall maybe 2-3 nights, not consecutive, of 10 minutes max once we were in the no-boob-at-all phase. Don't get me wrong, it was rough, but in no way the traumatic experience I feared.
I'm writing this post b/c this forum helped me on so many nights when I thought I was going to lose it. Just knowing that there were other families that truly understood what it was like and were still choosing to comfort their babies all night long was so helpful. And every once in a while I'd read about a family that finally figured out how to help their child sleep and I'd get a surge of hope, thinking *someday* I will get more sleep. "This too shall pass." I know that nightweaning isn't going to be every family's answer. I know not every family is comfortable with the idea. I can remember reading about nightweaning and thinking "well that's great for them, but it'd never work for us". Well it did and my incredible non-sleeping child has turned into a sleep-thru-the-nighter!
And I feel so blessed that there really was an alternative to CIO. My DD is still comforted all night long by snuggling with Mama and Papa - we just showed her another way to get that comfort other than nursing. I'm glad I waited as long as we did b/c she could understand what we were telling her at night about the sun and the boobies sleeping. She still loves her boobie during daylight hours, she still nurses to sleep for nap and bedtime, and our nursing relationship is once again loving. As it should be.
Anyway, for those still in the depths of sleep deprivation - there IS hope. Sometimes in places you didn't think could possibly help. This too shall pass. You WILL sleep again.
It's a great book, and includes the night weaning plan.
I KNOW she's still a baby, but I need some more sleep!! I feel so guilty when I talk about wanting to nightwean and he tries to convince me that she should still nurse at night - hopefully we'll work it out!
) that night nursing, even cosleeping night nursing) was a horrible wakeful experience for me. I'd lie there, waiting for DS to be asleep enough for me to move into a comfortable sleeping position, resenting DS for having kept me awake for 18 months, resenting DH for snoring peacefully and comfortably just inches away, and thinking I was a bad person for being so resentful.
