Please help- recently nightweaned DS not sleeping!!

[Thing1Thing2]

Please help me figure out why my 26 month old DS is going to bed at 12 and getting up at 6am for the past 3 days since being nightweaned.

We nightweaned because I need the sleep desperately. But I'm getting even less sleep now that we are not nursing at night. Last night he got up crying and asking to nurse three times and I had to rock him back to sleep all three times.

Then he woke up at 6 asking to nurse (which is fine because we nurse when "Mr. Sun" wakes up". But then he wanted to stay up.

Please help me figure out what I can do? I'm so tired. At least if he would go to bed at a decent hour I could get a little sleep...

[luvmybaby333]

He could be hungry. Could you try giving him a snack right before bed?

[Thing1Thing2]

I have tried. In fact he will eat all night until he goes to bed. Last night he ate a cup of quinoa, half of a large sweet potato and about 7 stalks of steamed broccoli at 11pm. Then he stayed up until 12 at which point I had to cajole him into falling asleep.

It's possible that he is *still* hungry. It's possible that he was getting most of his calories at night. Although, I will never know how much milk he was getting since I slept through alot of it.

[JL83]

Nurse him?

I have 2 weaned kids and neither of them have slept better once they were weaned. With my DD1 (who was a terrible sleeper) I unweaned her because it made nights so much worse. It was a shock when my son weaned when I was pregnant and he didn't want to nurse anymore. Suddenly nights became hell because I didn't have anyway to get him back to sleep. I wish he would have nursed, then at least he would have just gone back to sleep rather than being awake for an hour at a time.

[tangledblue]

DD gets 8-10 oz of whole milk right before bed--that seems to help. (milk, toothbrushing, bed)

[Thing1Thing2]

JL 83 I have heard many different things about nightweaning. One is that they sleep better if they are not waking up to nurse. I think my DS would sleep better as well since he has been diagnosed with reflux.

Tangledblue I will try the milk. We drink coconut milk because DS has allergies.

[pinky]

Kids are different.

With dd#1, nightweaning was a miracle. She went from waking 4+ times a night to sleeping through.

With dd#2, nightweaning didn't help at all. If anything, our nights were worse--she was still waking up, but she was furious and couldn't get back to sleep. I finally wised up and started nursing her again, which made our nights much more peaceful.

I hate to say it, but there's no magic bullet. Some kids just keep waking no matter what you do! As a parent, all we can decide is how to respond to it.

[Thing1Thing2]

Pinky - we are back to night nursing... I think it will be better to wait until after he gets his molars. Thanks for the reply...

[pinky]

Best of luck to you. It is really, really hard when your child doesn't sleep well. But eventually, he will. It just may not be soon. Hang in there!