Is this typical for a bf toddler?

[bluedaisy]

My dd is 21 months - she has never been a very good sleeper.

I am the only one who can get her to sleep - she nurses to bed for naps and bedtime. It typically takes 15 min of nursing for her to fall asleep for naps, 30 for bedtime, but sometimes it takes over an hour of nursing for her to fall asleep at night. She often squirms all over the place while latched on before she settles down.

She doesn't sleep through the night, and often doesn't even sleep through naps. She typically wakes once in the middle of a nap, and two or three times at night, but it can be 5 or more times at night sometimes. She typically nurses back to sleep pretty easily but sometimes she is awake for hours in the middle of the night. She sleeps on a mattress right next to our bed and often comes into our bed at some point during the night.

Is this typical for a nursing toddler?

Most people I know IRL don't bf this long and think there must be something wrong with her. I have friends who complain that their 4 month olds are not sleeping through the night yet, and my 21 month old has never slept through the night even once.

We are considering looking into medical reasons for her sleep issues, but she hates doctors and I hate to put her through that if this is typical behavior.

I'd love to know if this is typical for your nursing toddler or if you have any tips for how i can improve this - I expected several months of sleep deprivation when I had a baby but not 2 years of it!! I would love for DH to be able to put her to sleep but she just screams if he even tries.

[Purple Sage]

I answered 'yes this is my child', but technically that was only true for one of my children. She's 7 now and sleeps on her own all night long just fine. It was a long, sometimes difficult process to get her sleeping well on her own, though, and now that I recall all we went through with her, I can understand your concern. My advice would be to set some boundaries and then follow through consistently. We started with night weaning, and that involved many nights of getting up again and again to put her back to bed. I also recall many nights when she slept in front of the TV with a Disney movie playing. Thank goodness that is all in the past now!

I think that what you're describing is in the spectrum of normal, so please don't worry that your dd has medical issues (although I suppose anything is possible).

You have my sympathy and good luck, mama!

[rabbitmum]

Sounds typical, but my toddler was a better sleeper, since he didn't stay awake for hours. My experience is that they sleep a lot better after they get their two year molars, before that they can wake up quite often, especially if there's some teething going on.

[joycenjackiesmom]

This was true for my second child but not for my first. Now at 7 and 11 the younger child is more of a stay up late sleep in type of kid (like me) and her older sister tends to go to bed early and get up with the sun (like her dad). Both have slept through the night for years--although the younger still prefers to sleep with mom and dad.

[pumpkin]

This sounds like my DD. When I speak to my mother about her sleep issues she says I was exactly the same way. The big difference is that I only nursed a few months. So at least in our family the sleep resistance doesn't appear to be nursing related.
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[littlemizflava]

i said yes but my dd was amazing she would wake up BF and then move over and go back to sleep. she still at 8 will wake up in the night. my ds woke up many times in the night to BF. he would do the flip thing but that wakes me up so i kinda teach him that he has to be calm and kinda still to nurse. the moving was really bad he would wake me all the way up then i would be up all night. my ds at almost 4 still moves like crazy at night. we still cosleep

[Peony]

Everyone of my 3 bf toddlers have done that. Eventually the older two went on to sleep better, my youngest is 16m so he is still doing it.

[mtchen79]

DD1 was similar and probably didn't sleep through the night until between age 2 and 3 but I did nightwean her earlier so when she awoke in the middle of the night, I would hold her tight/cuddle to help her go back to sleep. My neighbor's son is almost 2.5 years old and is not night weaned and his mom has not slept a full night this whole time but I don't perceive there to be anything wrong, other than that the mom is exhausted.

[thepeach80]

I want to put yes, it sounds like my child b/c it does, but I don't think it's normal. My others weren't great sleepers, but they'd wake and eat and go back to sleep. Liv doesn't do that, she's up and has to nurse and nurse and gets mad if I take it away etc. It's exhausting and I'm trying to find something to remedy it. She also has food intolerances and past reflux issues so we know there can be medical reasons. I put look for a medical reason if it's getting to the point where it's becoming a problem.

[haurelia]

I don't know if it's typical, but I could have written your post word for word regarding my 19 month old son, down to the length of time nursing, the wakings, and your sleeping arrangement. Some nights are better than others, but there's still quite a bit of night nursing around here. Other than a long car ride, I am the only one who can put him to sleep. He STTN *once* and it felt like I'd slept 12 hours straight when we woke up in the morning. It was lovely, but has never been repeated.

I'm leaning toward nightweaning at this point, just too chicken to face the nights of crying. He's gotten all his teeth except the 2nd molars...I'm hoping for a little breathing room before they start, and maybe accomplishing nightweaning in the next month or two. Although, many extended nursers say that waiting to nightwean until after the 2nd molars come is easier. I'm with ya; I just want some more (unbroken) sleep and for DH to be able to transition to bedtime duty...like nurse, then DH reads books and boy goes to sleep. Seems wishful at this point.
Best wishes for you!

[tibeca]

My DD did not learn to STTN until she was over 2 years old. She was nursing every 1 1/2 to 2 hours all night long. She slept right beside me in the bed, but other sleeping arrangements made no difference on her night waking. We tried night weaning several times, but it resulted in too much resistance. When we finally stopped pushing the issue, she gradually learned to STTN. It seemed like a miracle then, but looking back, I regret even trying to night wean. The stress of it simply wasn't worth it, and we all learn to sleep in our "due time."

Patience, frequent naps when LO is sleeping, and more patience will get you through.

[mamazee]

This sounds like my older dd. She was up frequently to nurse through the night until I nightweaned her when she was 2. The younger one has always slept through the night, and I didn't have to do anything to make that happen. They're all different.

[soso-lynn]

My first was like that and I never felt it was abnormal. She slept in my bed until she was about 2. After that, I would put her in her own bed, in my bedroom, and she would come into mine when she woke up. She was probably almost 3 when she stopped nursing at night on a consistent basis but she continued to nurse before bedtime until she weaned recently (a few months before her 6th birthday).

[sapphire_chan]

It's just like my dd.

But for us, waking in the middle of a nap is generally because she needs to pee and if I can spot her squirming before she fully wakes, I can just take her to the potty in her sleep and get her back down for another couple hours.

Waking in the middle of the night is either her up and ready to play for hours because she went to bed too soon (before 10) or her inconsolable for as long as 30 minutes followed by being awake and ready to play for hours because of night terrors.

Most nights, she just nurses as she needs and I sleep through it.

[sapphire_chan]

Originally Posted by thepeach80

I want to put yes, it sounds like my child b/c it does, but I don't think it's normal. My others weren't great sleepers, but they'd wake and eat and go back to sleep. Liv doesn't do that, she's up and has to nurse and nurse and gets mad if I take it away etc. It's exhausting and I'm trying to find something to remedy it. She also has food intolerances and past reflux issues so we know there can be medical reasons. I put look for a medical reason if it's getting to the point where it's becoming a problem.

I have a friend who had a similar pattern with her little boy and it turned out to be a fatty acid disorder. I hope it isn't that for your dd, but it's an easy blood test to rule it out.

[LadyCatherine185]

My DS woke every hour or so until we nightweaned at 19 months old. He now STTN about half the time, and the other half he wakes up just once. Some kids need gentle pushes towards more independance.. We did the Dr Jay Gordon nightweaning plan, took it slower though, and there were NO tears and he started sleeping. so. much. better. He was used to getting calories at night. DH also puts him to bed at night, something we started transitioning in at around 9 months old.

If it is working ok for you, keep doing it. If not, change it.

I would not say that it is caused by a medical issue, unless there are other issues present.

[crunchy_mommy]

I said 'Yes, sounds just like my child!' but really I think my toddler sleeps much worse than what you described. :-( I hear you on only expecting a few months of sleep deprivation, not YEARS!!

[lifeguard]

Ds is very similar. He takes about 10-15 minutes to nurse down for naps & if I want him to nap longer than 45 minutes I need to stick close & be ready to bf again as soon as he wakes or he's up for good.

At night he generally takes 15-45 minutes to fall asleep. I don't tolerate flipping around when he's on the breast so if he won't settle I unlatch him & either let him flop around for a bit or just snuggle him until he's ready to lie still(ish) & nurse - sometimes this means a little bit of crying. During the night he wakes up at least once, sometimes up to 3 times. A couple nights a month he is up for a 3 hour block in the middle of the night (oddly it is always 3 hours).

As for others putting him down he will go down for my Mom for a nap or for dh for a nap or for bed - but ONLY if I am nowhere to be found & there is generally crying through the process although it is not terrible.

I don't think you are describing anything wrong.

One thing that really helped us with night wakings was to work on nightweaning. I definitely wouldn't say he is totally nightweaned but after introducing a waterbottle in the middle of the night & dh sometimes going to him instead of me we found he started waking less in the night. In some ways this was easier as he sleeps in his own room most of the night (I bring him to bed when he wakes after 5:00am).

[kcstar]

I said my toddler slept better, only for the naptime. Since I WOHM, DH soothes him back to sleep with the paci at naptime. At nighttime when we were nursing, it was a lot like you describe. Somewhere around 21 months perhaps was when I first tried setting limits on the night-nursing, we were able to get it more-or-less on a schedule.

[hrsmom]

My dd was just like that! We honestly didn't get any good sleep until I started basically meditating before bed and a few things like that. Night time is good time together, though, but better stretches of sleep are good!