Thinking of nightweaning- maybe already in progress

[curious&eager]

I am so frustrated because I do not mind waking up once or even twice a night to breastfeed. But, the problem is DS likes to be awake for 1 to 2 hours before I can get him to go back to sleep after I feed him. He's 14 months old and I did not plan on nightweaning at this age, but I cannot think of any other way to get him to go back to sleep. As he nurses he gets more and more awake. I think I produce wake up milk instead of sleepy milk .

Last night my husband said I was not going to nurse him because he's tired too of this "play" period every night, so he attended to DS and tried to get him to go back to sleep. After 2 hrs and 15 minutes of screaming, DS went back to sleep. Sadly, since he's awake 2 hrs normally on a lot of nights, it wasn't as bad as I thought it could be.

DS slept for another 4 hours after that, so he went all night without food. But, then the little booger wasn't interested in nursing when he woke up. He nursed a bit and then wanted to play instead. He makes me frustrated, if he is so hungry at night that he would scream for 2 hours, then he should have been really hungry in the morning.

Maybe I'm just venting. He is so difficult in the days that I need my sleep to handle him. I'm curious to see if anyone has been in this situation and tell me if night weaning may help or if my nights are just going to continue to be misery for a while.

[curious&eager]

He slept all night! Wahoo! It's only been a week and it hasn't been to hard to night wean him, very little crying.
He slept long too last night, a real night. 9pm to 8am, and he was in a pretty good mood today. Usually he's grumpy and I suspected it was because he's constantly not getting enough sleep because he fights to go down so hard and wakes up a lot. I hope we're onto something good .

[Alisse]

Ooooooooooooo, ahhhhhhh. I likey your post. I dream of nightweaning and sleeping through the night. I hope that happens with us.

Sorry, i have nothing constructive to say.

[sillysmile]

I don't have anything constructive to say either, but let me just say that you are SOOO lucky. My 19m DD has been nightweaned for almost 2 wks now, and she still wakes up all the time and about 1/3 of the time she will be up for a 2-3 hr stretch during the night. I keep hoping something magical will happen in her brain to let us all sleep.

[sunnygir1]

I night weaned my dd at 17 or 18 months, and it definitely made a difference. It wasn't that she slept all night every night like magic, but she actually started sleeping all night sometimes, and then more frequently. She would still have nights where she was up for 1-3 hours in the night, but they were definitely less frequent.

And, very importantly for us, it created an opportunity for dh to be able to do some nighttime parenting (not his forte) with her while I was pregnant and after the baby came (a year after I night weaned her).

[Shanny2032]

We nightweaned a week ago and each night I think it has gotten a little better. Last night her "wake up and tell Mommy how mean she is" period was only from about 5:30-6:15 - better than any other nights. I am now seeing a light at the end of the tunnel and after 21 months of this I am so ready for it!

[curious&eager]

Funny- "wake up and tell Mommy how mean she is" I hope she isn't talking because then it would be harder. My DS has a very angry scream since he can't talk.

Still going well, last night he slept from 8:50-7am without waking up, but since I was not home I missed our good night nursing, so I nursed him in his sleep around 11pm.

I cannot believe how good he's doing. But, we've worked so hard too. I also stopped rocking him to sleep and instead put him in his crib and encouraged/fought with him to lay down so I could rub his back or pat his butt to sleep. That was a several week adjustment (ie, plenty of tears on both sides). I try not to rub or pat too much so he learns to go to sleep on his own, so when he wakes up he can close his eyes and go back to sleep.

But, something has to change again because he drags out his going down for a nap to almost a hour long struggle. My back is killing me from leaning over and patting him for that long. I won't leave and let him cry it out alone, but I have to figure out something else to do. Wow, teaching a kid to sleep without letting him cry it out is tons of work. I'm tired, but it's paying off, I'm finally getting some sleep.

Off to bed... Thanks you all.

[JonahRoo]

i have a 2 yr old and i am currently night weaning. I just wanted to share my experience and reason why i decided to night wean. Before when i would nurse him to sleep (either beginning of bed time or in the middle of night when he would wake) nursing would work and actually help him to go to sleep. What ended up happening recently was that i would nurse and when i put him down, he was still awake! So i started thinking that if nursing isn't doing the trick then maybe its okay to start night weaning (i am certainly ready!). There is no magic formula to get him to go to sleep on his own but I figure either way i was up anyway. So I am just working on sticking to a routine and hoping that eventually it sticks.

Oh and the way I initiated this weaning process was one night i said to DS "How about we are all done with nursing? No more nursing okay?" and He said "all done nursing!" and he really hasn't asked too much for it since and when he does I just remind him "we are all done nursing remember?" and then he doesn't ask again. So I am kind of surprised by this but pleased of course! Now it's just about finding a new routine that fits his needs for sleep.

Good luck!