One month of night-weaning and having second thoughts

[sarah1122]

Our 20 month old has never been a great sleeper. Several months ago we decided to night wean him...no one was getting much sleep at night and he was doing all of his eating during the night, consuming almost no solid foods during the day. So we started with night-weaning from midnight to dawn for a few months (with limited success)...and one month ago I stopped nursing him at night altogether. He nurses at bedtime and then can have milk again when the birds start singing (usually around 4am these days).

This has greatly improved his sleep and he now regularly sleeps from bedtime (around 8pm) until 1am or later, comes into our bed for snuggling this first time he wakes and then often sleeps until around 4 when he nurses and then falls back asleep.

The trouble is that once a week or more he'll be up for an hour or two in the middle of the night asking for milk, tossing and turning, fussing and sometimes crying. We always have a bottle handy in the event that he is actually hungry and most of the time he's not interested.

I'm starting to lose my resolve. And am thinking about starting to nurse him at night again....broken sleep all night somehow seems better than no sleep at all, but the thought of going back to nursing all night long makes me cringe (is that terrible?). Advice or suggestions are appreciated! Thanks mamas.

[NiteNicole]

I would hold out. You're pretty close and to me, the idea of having to start over would just be too much. My daughter is four. She goes to sleep pretty much on her own and sleeps all night...and she'll still have a restless night every now and then. I think that's normal. I have them, too. I would wonder if offering it would even help, or if he'd just be restless with an expectation that you'd "fix" it - you know? So nothing really fixed AND you're back to square one.

[alegna]

Could it be molars?

A child who clearly is that disturbed at night wanting to nurse, I would nurse.

-Angela

[LCBMAX]

When this happened to us, I moved out of the bed and let Daddy handle those big wake-ups. When the opportunity to request and be denied milk was no longer present, the big wake-ups became less big and less often. And I sleep great in another room with earplugs. I hope to move back in but not a minute before I am radiating vibrant good health and well-rested-ness, at least as much as a mama can have.

[LadyCatherine185]

For us, moving DS into his own bed and having Daddy handle wakeups did the trick. He sleeps through the night (usually from 9-5 or 6) about half the time now, and on the nights he does wake up, it is only once around 3 or 4 and goes right back to sleep.

I agree it could be molars, my DS is cutting his 2 year molars right now. But nursing all night is not an option for us anymore, as I am pregnant and nursing is very painful. And we wanted DS to get used to Daddy handling wakeups long before the new baby comes.. we honestly thought it would be a rough transition which is one reason we started so early, but he handled it very well.. hardly any fussing and no tears.

[ssh]

Originally Posted by alegna

Could it be molars?

A child who clearly is that disturbed at night wanting to nurse, I would nurse.

-Angela

This. Also some toddlers night wean themselves after all their teeth are in. My DD stopped most of her night feedings at 2.5. She'd nurse to sleep, then nurse in the morning and sleep an hour or two more. We usually had 9 to 11 hours of sleeping child.

[MamaHaven]

I think figuring out whether or not the nursing is really what will help if in fact he is teething. While its mostly soothing - sometimes the disturbed sleep and the body's habituation to being fed when it should be sleeping is the last thing they need.

While my daughter is one, I had her night weaned until her back molars have started to come in and on the 'bad' nights I'll go in usually around 3:30 - 4 and nurse her for a while and I can tell its a comfort nurse for the most part. But at 2, I dunno, I might consider other soothers like a bottle of water? And also, even if you do wind up returning to a nurse or two at night, you might find the reversion to night weaned less arduous than you anticipate.

[alegna]

Originally Posted by MamaHaven

But at 2, I dunno, I might consider other soothers like a bottle of water? And also, even if you do wind up returning to a nurse or two at night, you might find the reversion to night weaned less arduous than you anticipate.

Why a bottle of water instead of the real thing?

-Angela

[kalamos23]

DD is 23m and has been having those thrashing wakeups and wanting to nurse all night - found out today she is cutting 2 molars and working on a 3rd, poor thing! The last one is cut already. She started teething on the molars at 20m or so, so I wouldn't doubt it's probably molars. We decided to just nightwean once the molars are in. I should add, DD has never been a good sleeper - far from it - but she did have a stretch before she started teething on the molars where she was sleeping decently (no other teething was going on), so you may find he sleeps better once the molars are in.

[kalamos23]

Oh, and I agree with Angela - I'd nurse him when he's up like that - once a week isn't bad if he is sleeping the rest of the time. When we realized DD was a bad sleeper, I made sleep our main priority - whatever gets everyone the most amount of sleep is okay in my book, kwim? You won't ruin him by nursing at night or ruin nightweaning - and you may end up with more sleep overall since you won't have the 2 hours up in the middle of the night.