30 month old nursing/cosleeping

[friskykitty]

I have a 30 month old son. We have always nursed to sleep and co sleep. He is able to go to sleep with his sitter during the day. She lays down beside him while he chatters. He goes down within 30 minutes.


For bed he nurses to sleep. Sometimes it happens really fast other times, it can be up to two hours of him chattering, up and down etc. I am a teacher,so when I am off for weekends/summer/holidays we do the same for nap time.

Overnight, he generally wakes up 1-2 times to nurse. But he's not really awake, just rolls over and asks for milk, latches and drinks. Most of the time, in the middle of the night, I can tell him "Mummy is going to roll over now" when he's finished drinking and he will let me. Otherwise, he'd use me as an all night pacifier.

So my questions: Will he wean himself? Will he teach himself to go to sleep without nursing? Will he want to sleep in his own bed? What things can I do to help gently facilitate this happening?

We are an attachment parenting home, and really try to follow his lead.

[FiveZip]

I, too, am curious to know from many mamas out there who have been there, done that.

You describe my situation to a T: following my DD (21 months)'s lead, nursing to sleep for naps and nighttime, sharing bed.... The only time she falls asleep without nursing is if we are driving and she is very tired. She wakes up at night to nurse as well.

I often hear about mamas who nurse their child to sleep (hurray!), but I never hear about how weaning and sleeping independently went with him/her. Perhaps, most mamas wean their child, but I am willing to wait until DD naturally weans. My question is whether she will actually wean herself from being nursed to sleep!

The only thing that is giving me hope is that gradually, she seems to need less nursing at night. When everything is all right (as in no teething, no growth spurt, no change of environment), she wakes up at night, calls for me in a sleepy state, but when she realizes that I am next to her, she puts her head down next to me and falls asleep again without nursing. I keep thinking that as long as falling asleep is not a traumatic event for her, she will eventually learn to fall asleep without nursing, and then feel like a big girl enough to go to bed on her own. Am I being naiive???? Don't know.

It's nice that your son falls asleep with the babysitter next to him. DD won't even sleep with her own father unless she is simply exausted.

Hang in there! You are doing a great job!

[friskykitty]

BUmping. I am hoping for some wisdom from BTDT mamas.

[mizzoh]

we co-slept and bf'd and ds did nurse to sleep until he was about 20 months old. around that time in order to facilitate weaning, dh and i changed our bedtime routine. i just stayed out of the way - instead of automatically going in and nursing him, dh would get him ready for bed and i just stayed in another room. we decided if he asked for me, then we'd let him nurse, but he never asked! dh would then rock him to sleep. i weaned him slowly over 4 months time. the middle of the night nursing was the last to go. i think by that time since he was no longer nursing during the day it was easy for him to lose the habit at night

can't help ya on the own bed thing - ds is 4.5 and still sleeps with us

[terra-pip]

Here to offer my btdt cosleeping wisdom. I don't even think about a separate bed for my kids until around 4 years of age...and then I start the sleeping on their own process. My oldest (7) started sleeping in his own bed when he was 4 and a half or so. How it happened was like this. I started offering less nurses around 2 years of age. "Don't offer, don't refuse" and then gradually made it so that nurses was something we only did at home, and then I always offered some real food or time with me playing etc instead of nurses. By 3 and a half the nap nurse and bedtime nurse were the last to go. For naps I would just lay with him and read as many books as he liked. He would usually fall asleep without nurses some of the time...I did this at bedtime too. Eventually he was done nursing altogether but still coslept. We made it a big deal getting a bed for his room at 4 years old and decorating how he wanted and would do our nap routine of reading in his room. And we asked where he wanted to sleep at night...and this is key....never showed any sort of frustration about it...the minute you start feeling resentful or impatient the longer they'll stay in your bed.

remember you chose to cosleep to help their sense of self esteem and all that right?

We never made a big deal when he chose his bed either...just read nighttime books and talked/sang whatever and then went to bed. Sometimes he'd get up and move in to our bed in the middle of the night...again no big deal..let them. Don't follow the advice to walk them back to their bed...bad advice. Sometimes he would pop into our bed the next minute after we would go through the routine...again no big deal. I'd say it was only several months until he was staying in his bed all night. From then until now...he's 7... he has shown no sleep issues at all. Sleeps well and stays asleep all night...there have been times after a bad dream or when ill that he's returned to sleep with us...but thats totally normal and not often. He's even on the spectrum and his dev pede is surprised we have never had sleep problems. Sometimes he falls asleep in our bed in the beginning of the evening because I have started the routine of reading to him and my 3 year old in my bed while nursing my 2 week old...this puts the 3 year old to sleep, gets the baby nursed and then everyone gets a story. It's a win win. After my reading my 7 year old goes to his room on his own. I always pop in and give a kiss again after he walks himself to his room.

I cosleep now with my 3 year old and a 2 week old...surprisingly it's working out well...and I was worried about it...but I want my 3 year old to get all the benifit my oldest did out of cosleeping. My 3 year old was weaned in my second trimester at 2 and a half...it hurt to nurse..so I pushed weaning a bit more. Nighttime was the last to go and again what I did was make nursing the very last thing on the bedtime routine...and if he asked to nurse in the middle of the night I would say "mamma milks are asleep right now"...simple but it worked. I'd say the same to my oldest at that age. He hasn't shown any regression seeing the baby nursing at all.

I'm pretty confident that moving to his bed will work out as well as with my oldest.. I plan on them sharing a room so I'm thinking that would help speed it along even more.

The big thing to remember is the minute a child feels you are resenting nursing or sleeping the longer they are going to hold onto it...because those two things bring them comfort and security and they don't want to let it go out of anxiety if they sense your inpatience etc. But if you stay calm and make as little fuss about it as possible but set some reasonable boundaries...like no nursing until after xyz or no nursing until morning time or whatever works for you and what your child can accept then I think you're sure to get them into a big bed of their own no problem around 4 years of age. I pick 4 because of studies showing that the benefits of cosleeping that long improve kids development and emotional intelligence.

[FiveZip]

Thank you for sharing your experience, terra-pip!

I definitely agree with you about 1) not resenting, and 2) not making a big deal when those moments come. I try to live by those as well. The same could be said about toilet training, huh? I guess I was also doing the "waiting to nurse" without realizing because 95% of the nursing now occur at home and she can wait when I gently tell her. However, I never thought about doing it at night when DD asked. Perhaps, when I feel that she is ready to be told that the milk is sleeping at night, I will try it.

I never planned on pushing her to her own bed, but I did hope that she would one day take the initiative to move on. I just didn't know if there were any mamas whose children actually did that. It's great to hear that your child gradually moved on. Although many kids wean or move on abruptly, just as many, if not more, slowly test the waters out there, and we need to be prepared that that is how it is going to be. I concur that once we accept the way the child is, it is much easier to face the stage.

[terra-pip]

imo...I don't think kids take the initiative...they need some weaning and help just like bfing weaning and toilet training and maybe eating well etc. I'm not sure when or if my son would have ever asked for his own bed. He still does love snuggling with us. But by making the decision to buy a bed and get his room more like a place to sleep as well as a place to play helped. Letting him make decisions about sheets and blankets. All of that helped him see that there was another option.

We've been talking about it with my 3 year old. They are going to share a room and my oldest really wants bunk beds. Cosleeping with two is working out well...I can get the babe to stay in the cosleeper a little bit each night...hopefully she'll learn to really be able to sleep there. Poor husband has been on the couch...no room for him. But he says he understands and actually sleeps better.

Your little one is still young yet. Things really start changing when they're 2!