Tell me a little about nightweaning.

[larzanna]

Hi All:

So, my DS is going to be 15 months on August 6th. He has never been a good sleeper, but i can handle waking a few times a night...like one or 2. Recently, he has been waking 5-6 times a night, and NOT going back to sleep (i have tried motrin in case its teeth i can't see, but it makes no difference).

He wants to nurse when he wakes, and then he flaps around for hours and hours. I am tired. We do co-sleep....So, can you nightwean and still co-sleep? And, at what age can this be done and is the easiest? If i have to wait a little bit (just a little bit) longer i will, but i really do feel like i am getting to the point where i want to nightwean.

I guess i am looking for info on the how and when, and how long it might take? I don't want to feel like i am being mean to him or maknig this traumatic though. Plus i want to continue to co-sleep.

Thanks for any information.
-L

[Kelly1101]

http://drjaygordon.com/attachment/sleeppattern.html

That link saved my life. We did it when my daughter was 12 months. She actually responded even better than I thought she would to it. I did modify it a little to make it longer-- instead of spending three days on each stage, we'd spend more like a week letting her adjust before moving on to the next stage.

Of course different things work for different babies, but I'd say that your son is old enough to go a night without eating, he'll make up for it during the day. It's worth a shot, and you can always adjust it depending on how he responds to it. But it's a way to do it while still co-sleeping, which was a big thing for me, too.

[SubliminalDarkness]

We nightweaned DS2 at 14 months. He was waking every 45 minutes to an hour to nurse, and was staying latched on for most of the night. I was exhausted, it hurt, and I was just sick of it.

DH took over. I left the bed and slept on the couch for about 8 months. There were a couple of difficult nights, but pretty quickly DS2 figured out that there were no boobs to be had at night, and he started sleeping pretty soundly. Sometimes he'd roll away from DH, wake up, move back to him, and go back to sleep.

It wasn't great having to sleep away from them, but everyone got a lot more rest that way.