Night-weaning: could it be THAT easy?

[mamandedeux]

DS2 is 19 months and is one of those all-night nursers, and by that I mean literally nursing every hour (we co-sleep, along with DS1 (4)). Lately (last couple of months), he decided that he also wanted to stay latched on all night as well, which made sleeping impossible for me and DS1. Trying to unlatch him made him very, very unhappy, and he would try to latch again. Repeat all night.... So I decided to ''try'' to nightwean two nights ago. The first time he woke up, I gently rubbed his back and he went right back to sleep. We did this 2-3 times (!!!) throughout the night. I let him nurse when he woke up at 5:30 and we started our day. Last night was night two. He slept from 8 pm till 5 am. HE HAS NEVER DONE THAT!

Nightweaning DS1 was hard, and he didn't fully nightwean until past 2. I just can't believe it could be this easy, although I am not getting my hopes up. Anyone else had a similar experience, or is this just a fluke?

Thanks!

[crunchy_mommy]

We had a few easy nights at first -- which completely shocked me! Maybe not quite as easy as you guys had, but close! This was a kid who woke every 20 minutes for his first 2 years... so waking every couple of hours felt wonderful when we started NW'ing.

Then we had some daytime nursing craziness (he wanted to stay latched ALL DAY -- probably to get my milk supply to adjust). And at night, it was like he realized, Oh this is a permanent thing? and we had a HORRENDOUS week or two. But after that, he was good, and he's still, a couple months later, sleeping 6-8 hours straight most nights. I don't think it would have worked if we'd started a few days sooner, we caught him at a time when he was emotionally ready and all. He was about 25mos IIRC.

Hopefully you'll skip the tough stage we had and go right to the consistent sleep stage!!

[Super~Single~Mama]

I would keep rubbing his back when he wakes up, and if he needs to nurse extra during the day to make up for the calories do it!!

It could just be that he's ready to nightwean, and another form of comfort will work from now on!  I hope so!!