Night weaning a 28 month old.

[poetryofsound]

Hello all, I'm new to the Forum, hoping to get your experiences with this. I would go to the La Leche Meetings and ask, but too busy with life to make for a meeting...

I thinking about night weaning my 28 month old daughter. Our routine goes like this:

7:30 nurse her to sleep in her toddler bed.

10 to 11 (somewhere in there) she fusses, I go to her room and get her in the potty. She pees, goes back to sleep. Sometimes by nursing, sometimes (like tonight) she goes right back to sleep.

Somewhere around 1 a.m. or so she wakes up to nurse, I get her, bring her to our bed and she nurses on/off all night. My bed is not huge so I feel very much squeezed between her and DH. She wakes up around 7 or 8. She does not nap.

I think, if she night weans, maybe... just maybe... she will sleep through the night. I love having her by my side, she is my only baby and I don't know if I'll ever have more, I hope so... but I don't know if we can, so this decision of night wean her is so difficult to me. I feel guilty, and selfish... but at the same time, I have zero energy and I know I'd be a better mom if I could get a bit more sleep.

Have you done night weaning for a child this age? Please share your experiences... thank you...

[elisheva]

I night-weaned mine somewhat earlier than yours...with ds1 at 21 months, his brother was a newborn and I was a rotisserie chicken rolling over and over and nursing one or the other or both all.night.long. I *had* to night-wean ds1...I talked to him during the day about it while the process was going on and explained when we were going to nurse (before bed and when the sun came up). We had this conversation many, many times. I can't really remember, but I'm sure there were some tears involved.

Ds2 night-weaned himself around 8 months when I was pregnant with his sister and my supply totally dropped off. I don't think he fussed at all - just stopped asking. In fact, I had to proactively offer him the boob during the day so he would nurse through the pregnancy to get a little more of the good stuff once dd was born. 

I night-weaned dd pretty early in this pregnancy (she was prob 12 months) and I think she had the hardest transition. She still asks to nurse when she wakes up in the night and isn't always content when I say "no". I did less talking to her about it which was probably a mistake on my part. 

The biggest factor for me, though, was that when I night-weaned them, I really felt I absolutely *had* to do it. I also don't mind holding a crying child so while it wasn't easy, it didn't break my heart, either.

[treegardner]

I could have written this post word for word, except DS is 34 months.

 

[hildare]

we're in the process of night weaning.. i just made a post today about how it doesn't suck. i am so relieved. seriously. we were so sleep-deprived, dd too, and i am so happy that i finally worked up the determination to try. 

if it is stressful to the babe, it's (at least for us) minimal.  a bit of crying or fussing when you're right there is totally not the same as CIO, either. 

for us, dd understood when i explained that boobies are going to sleep and wake up in the morning when we do.  (though there was a minimal bit of misinterpretation that we worked out)

it has not affected her daytime behavior-- that is what i was most concerned about.. no (extra haha) clinginess, and she's cheerful.  and finally i kind of am too.  we're looking to transition her out of our bed soon after all this is running smoothly, too, but we're cosleeping right now.

if your dd is pottying in the night (which is something we're not up to yet) you might have to keep that one, and eliminate the 1 am waking/ transition to your bed.  if i were in your situation and felt cramped in a small bed, i'd consider rearranging mattresses somehow to have hers near yours on the floor till you could nightwean.  it sounds like her nearness to you is inspiring her to nurse more... but you can still cosleep and nightwean.  it just might be easier for you to keep her out of your bed for now if she's used to her own.

nightweaning has so far been MUCH easier than i had built it up to be in my mind and now that i've done it and seen that she's ok with it, i don't feel a bit guilty.