experiences with Jay Gordon's night weaning plan

[sarahr]

DS has started waking up every 90 minutes to nurse, and I'm a zombie. I cannot keep this up. So, we're planning on night weaning in the next month or so.

I want to hear your experiences with Dr. Gordon's night weaning plan. Did it work for you in the promised 10 days? How painful (for you and the baby) was it? Any changes you made to make it work better? I want to hear the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Thanks!

[thelocknestmother]

No personal experience...a close friend tried once...didn't go well, quite after two nights.  Tried a month or two later, worked beautifully, no tears and didn't even need the full two weeks.  

[bcblondie]

It worked great for us! It was kinda hard seeing him upset when I wouldn't let him nurse on the other side, or at all, later on. It's hard to see them want somethign you could give them. But I felt that since I was holding him, rocking him, comforting him, it was ok. Children can't always have every thing they want. It only took him a couple days to stop asking and start sleeping through teh night. And then i was a much better mommy in the day time, when i was no longer a zombie. :)

[LeighPF]

This was the prefect plan for us. We were not co-sleeping at that point so we modified it a bit but otherwise went with it. I was just dead and night nursing was not working for us anymore. My son was occasionally sleeping through and it seemed to be about things other than food. We did it over the week of his first birthday. My husband ended up doing most of the work and they watched Lost at 3 am a few nights. In the end it seemed to work out to my son realizing that there was no more nursing at night and while Daddy was great, he was not worth waking up for. In a year we have had some night nursing for specific reasons, mostly illness and nightmares but never routinely.

This is what I really liked about it.

-easy to understand, simple and structured. You know what to do when

-the child gets as much parent as they need, no crying it out, no checking in every whatever. They are not abandoned to work it out for themselves.

-the realism of setting a time period for sleep and not nursing, with room at the ends for nursing still.

-The emphasis he places on this not being right for everyone all the time and to stop if it is just not working.

I read all the sleep books and one of the things I learned that everyone agreed on is that if it is not mostly working in a week to 10 days, it is not right for that child at that time.

[zoe77]

How old is your son?  When they are ready it's pretty easy.  BUT, my husband had to take over night parenting after the first few phases (after you totally get rid of the nursing).  My son was 27 months when we night weaned.  He still wakes up occasionally and my husband can get him back to sleep very easily (usually just needs his covers put back on or a sip of water).  We've gone away from home and had to resume a little night nursing but when we are back home he knows there is no milk at night.  FYI - we do not co-sleep.  Hope your night weaning experience is fast and painless :)

[sarahr]

DS will be only 13 months when we want to start. I know early, but I really, really need some sleep. How long did your DH need to take over the night parenting? DH travels quite a bit, and we plan to start when he'll be in town for 2.5 weeks, gone for a couple of days, with us for another 2.5 weeks (although we will all be travelling for part of that) and then gone for 10 days.

[zoe77]

My husband does almost all of the night parenting now.  If I go in, he wants milk.  So only if he is sick (only happened on vacation so far, lucky us) or inconsolable do I go in and then I usually break down and let him nurse (I think this has only happened once or twice while at home).  But my son was over twice as old, so not sure how it would work out with a younger baby.  Every child is different . . .

Good Luck!!

[LizzieRed]

I feel like the closer to one year you can begin to nightwean the better it will go.  We didn't try until 2 and my daughter was much more demanding and aggressive than I think she would have been when she was younger.  She had a habit (nursing all night) that she didn't want to break and was STUBBORN!!  We ended up having to wean all together, which I am very sad about.  I wish we had night weaned earlier...we would have ended up nursing much longer if I could have gotten more sleep.

[dancingmama]

It was a perfect solution for both my girls!  One took a little longer than the other, their personalities are different.  But they were never scared, lonely, terrified....  just kind of mad.  But I was always there, holding them, reassuring them.  It was great, we all slept better for it!  I think we did it around a year old or so.  It's been a while....

[Tattooed Hand]

Originally Posted by sarahr 

DS will be only 13 months when we want to start. I know early, but I really, really need some sleep. How long did your DH need to take over the night parenting? DH travels quite a bit, and we plan to start when he'll be in town for 2.5 weeks, gone for a couple of days, with us for another 2.5 weeks (although we will all be travelling for part of that) and then gone for 10 days.

We just did it almost 3 weeks ago and DD is only 15 months old tomorrow. She's getting her molars in to boot. I just couldn't wait either because I work and I was a zombie. Because she is so young, and because she goes to daycare 4-5 hours a day (and doesn't take a bottle) AND has multiple food sensitivities, she still nurses alot. I didn't want to cut her off all night. But we don't nurse from 11-4, so I can get a 5 hour solid block of sleep. She is also very prone to waking at 4-5 am and wanting to nurse and then falling back asleep. So I didn't want to mess with that nurse.

I won't lie, the first two nights were tough. She didn't cry for longer than a few minutes each time, and then would lie down and appear to go to sleep and then sit up and cry and be upset. Then she's stop after a few minutes and flop over. My DH didn't help at all, I just offered to cuddle her and eventually she went back to sleep. I figured that she is used to me at night and screams bloody murder if anyone but me tries to take care of her at night. I'd like to change that, but I figure we'd take it one thing at a time (didn't want to take the boobs AND mommmy away, kwim?). The first night it took 2 hours to get her back to sleep. The second night it took 45 minutes and the third it took 20 minutes. Since then she wakes up less and when she does wake up, she sits up, and either immediately flops back down, or she crawls over to me and cuddles (if she's rolled away). We've had a couple of bad nights in the last couple of weeks, but that's been the night before a molar came through and it would have been a bad night anyway. Otherwise, we are getting regular 4-8 hour stretches of sleep out of her.

Some other effects though: She nurses alot and for a long time in the morning when she first wakes up. Sometimes she'll nurse for up to 45 minutes, but this is also because she goes to daycare every morning and is probably just tanking up for that. Also, she nurses longer and more frequently in the afternoons (when she gets home from daycare). I'm fine with that because I'd rather she get what she needs in the afternoon rather than in the middle of the night. I think she was also more clingy the first few days, though this could have been teething too.

Good luck, and I hope you get some sleep. It's very hard!

[Altair]

We did it at 12 months and it went very well. 

Dad did the hands-on nighttime parenting more than I did during the transition, and he was already used to a pacifier so that helped.  We cut down to 12AM-5AM no nursing (which meant I slept on the couch those 5 hours), then cut out the 12 feeding after another month so basically 7PM-5AM (that one was pretty easy), then he'd go back to sleep for a few hours.  We kept that 5AM feeding until he was 18 months or so then he dropped it. 

After 12 months we also put the side up on his crib (which had been a side car) and transitioned to soothing him by rubbing him rather than taking him out, then just "shhhhh"ing, and that is what REALLY clicked and switched him from being up all night to STTN. 

at 2 years old he's such a fantastic sleeper I almost forget how rough the first 12 months were!   And I love that every step of the way was gentle.