Nightweaned, but still waking up, will this stop? - Page 2

[Peony]

Originally Posted by nervousmommy

At what age did she nightwean herself?

Right at 2, it never would of happened that early except I was pg and had no milk. She didn't want to nurse in the middle of the night and get nothing!

[poppan]

I just skimmed the thread so sorry if it's been said already.

I think STTN has to be thought of in two steps:
1) Nightweaning (because nursing is how the child currently knows how to go back to sleep after waking, and also because their stomachs have been trained to eat at certain times and that contributes to the waking)
2) Learning a different way to fall back asleep, preferably by themselves, to the point where they don't even come ALL the way awake

So everyone who has just nightweaned 2 weeks ago... congratulations on accomplishing the first step, that is the harder step. But if your child is still waking and requiring a lot of parenting to go back to sleep, read on:
Have you really thought about or worked on step 2? What are you doing to help your child learn to go back to sleep on their own? What conditions are they falling asleep under in the first place (it helps to have the same conditions when they wake later, because if there is nothing shockingly different it is easier for them to not come all the way awake and then need to be parented back to sleep).

I think NCSS has a good write up on how the sleep cycle works and what we as parents need to do to try to facilitate the learning to fall asleep process.