We've decided DD needs to nightwean now. I just can't deal with morning sickness, fatigue, insomnia and DD's constant waking asking to nurse. We've tried in the past and it was very, very unsuccesful and DD choose to stay awake the entire night and wait until it was bright outside (when I promised to nurse her again) rather than fall asleep on her own. Ugh!!! Add to this I'll be traveling probably twice at the middle/end of those month and be away from her 3 and 4 days respectively.
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The first order of business is getting her to fall asleep without nursing. Waaayyy easier said than done! Last night she took a bath, was dress to go to sleep and I told her then we were going to nurse, then read books and then she was going to fall asleep. Well, she nursed just fine, read her books just fine too. Then I asked if she was done with her books (she said yes) so I put them up and had the worst tantrum we've had in AGES! I finally got her calmed down and we laid in bed and she just started chattering a mile per minute. Eventually after being in the bedroom for a total of 2hours we gave up and DH put a soccer game on that he wanted to watch. Well, of course, about 15 minutes into that she came over to me, snuggled up and passed out! I really want her to be falling asleep in the bedroom WITHOUT the TV but when we shut the lights off it's like her brain turns on and she can't stop talking... any ideas?
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My other concern is nightmares. She's been getting them A LOT lately and will wake up saying the most random things. She gets really violent if I refuse nursing and will pull my hair, hit me, kick me etc. I try and comfort her in other ways but that just makes her even more upset. I know I dealt with a lot of nightmares as a kid (but my parents weren't always very understanding and just told me to go back to sleep or ignored them) so I want to be sympathetic but I'm not sure how? We've tried cutting back on TV but I don't think that's the problem. The things she's scared of have nothing to do with TV (stuff like bugs, T-rex, separation anxiety, people pretending to chase her etc). I'm sort of at a loss and I don't remember anything every helping my nightmares growing up (I actually had them until about the time that I got pregnant with DD!).
