learning to sleep w/o nursing to sleep?

[Nova0929]

My son is almost weaned but still nurses to sleep. However, I am 20 weeks pregnant and apparently my milk tastes different or the milk supply is super slow because now at our bedtime nursing he pulls away saying, "Not working, not working." Then he gets frustrated and wakes himself up and then is awake, yelling and crazy, till 10:30 or 11pm! Needless to say, we are all going a little crazy around here! Sooo tired.

So how do I help my son learn to go to sleep without nursing? By today I had figured out the problem (took me almost a week!) and tonight we tried something different -- we talked about how mama's nursies aren't working so well, and pretty soon we would have to stop nursing at night all together because they were going to stop working. Then my husband and I kept him awake longer till he was really sleepy and mellow by reading till 9:15 or so, when he was just sooo sleepy, rubbing his eyes, snuggling up with me. I turned off the lights and said we could try a little nursie. A little bit on one side and he was j-u-s-t about asleep, so I stopped, but he started freaking out, starting the whole freak-out routine he's been doing. So I quickly said let's try a little on the other side, and he was asleep within minutes.

But what else can I do? What are some things to help him sleep without nursing to sleep? This last week has been an absolute nightmare.

Thank you!

[starling&diesel]

Hi ... I'm guessing that this is going to be moved to the nursing beyond infancy forum, but I'll reply here.
How old is your son?
We're night weaning here too. Some of the things that have helped: sticking hard to a bedtime routine. Letting her know with some lead up time that night-night is coming soon. Having a bath. PJ's, teeth and story. I've been letting her nurse to sleep, but will have to stop soon because of tooth decay. I plan to flip it, so that we do PJ's, nurse, teeth. But that means she needs to learn to fall asleep without nursing. Tried it last night and it took an hour.
I was in bed with her, she talked (I didn't engage much, only with the things that encouraged sleeping), let her get herself arranged with her bear (over and over and over), rubbed her back, rubbed her tummy, sang her songs, went through her list of night-nights over and over (she says goodnight to EVERYTHING and EVERYONE of any importance in her life) and stuck with it.
Eventually she fell asleep. I'll mention that we start bedtime here around 9pm.
Good luck!

[mckittre]

For us, we started with night weaning (not letting him nurse back to sleep after waking up at night).

Now we do a routine of PJs, a little nursing, brush teeth, and then Dad sings songs in bed until he goes out. This works really quickly if he doesn't nap, and can take awhile if he does nap. We let him crawl out of bed to get a special toy if he needs to. And try to have the lights out and be utterly boring if he doesn't cooperate (he only gets the songs if he's laying down).

I think it helps to have Dad do the final put to sleep if you want to switch away from the nursing. My reason for doing the switch was pregnancy as well - and having Dad do nighttime is going to be more important once I have an all-night nursing newborn again.

[handsandfeet]

DS self weaned 2 months ago, and had a really hard time after that with getting to sleep (he refused to nurse b/c he had a cold, and then never went back to it). By far the best solution was having DH put him to bed. I would do stories and sippy cup of warm milk, then brush his teeth and hand him to daddy, who would do 2 more books and lights out in his bed. It works really really well, surprisingly.

When I have to put him to bed (DH sometimes works nights), the best thing seems to be rockign him vigorously while holding him in the nursing position. He likes to nuzzle my boobs . I sing to him and rock till he's asleep then transfer him.

[lifeguard]

We're in the process of trying to get ds to start going to sleep without nursing because I'm tired of being the only person who can put him to bed (unless I'm not here & then it's a struggle for everyone).

What we've done is nurse downstairs before we start the bedtime routine. I give him a warning that if he wants to nurse now is his opportunity about 15-20 minutes before I intend to start the bedtime routine. Then our routine is pj's, potty, books & then cuddles to sleep. He repeatedly asks to nurse during the cuddle time, tries to get up, asks to go potty, plays with things. It's frustrating but we've been doing it almost 2 weeks now & the crying & carrying on has reduced to less & less time now.

I must admit I would LOVE dh to take over the whole bedtime thing but we're not there yet. Dh says he will do it but when it comes down to it he's a big grump about every time I actually ask him to do it so I've just been carrying on.

[Anandamama]

When we were at this stage many people told me: let dad handle it. They were right. If I was around dd just became agitated. I slept downstairs for about two weeks (because she still woke up wanting to nurse for comfort and would freak if I was there and didn't nurse her) while they got their routine down. She was only upset for the first few nights and soon *only* wanted papa to help her go to sleep. Yes!!

[globe-trotter]

Sorry to mini-hajack your thread....
What happens when dad doesn't work We tried the dad thing and he starts BAWLING, full tears and just so upset.

[mckittre]

We eased into the dad at night thing. First both of us lay next to him until he was all the way asleep. Then I started out next to him, but got up to let dad finish it. Now I do the earlier parts of the routine, then hand him off to dad.

[Pookietooth]

Driving themm in the car until they fall asleep works for us.

[lovesea]

When you were all snuggled up and he was all sleepy, why did you offer to nurse? I'm sure (well I don't know your child obviously) that he would probably have just drifted off to sleep then. And as he hadn't fallen asleep on the breast he wouldn't have sensed that something was being taken away when you got up.

I dropped that last bedtime feed with both my kids fairly easily. With ds I just started giving him milk in a sippy cup at bedtime and that worked, amazingly! With dd, dh took over bedtime for a couple of nights and that was fine too. Kids sometimes surprise you.

[Baby_Cakes]

On nights when nursing doesn't put DD to sleep, we lay together and I sing to her. It might take 45 min, but soon her eyelids start to droop and she falls asleep. She is 24 months and only nurses to sleep at this point.