Night weaning plans?

[whitneyg]

My 20 month old DD has been waking every 2 hours to nurse for her whole life and I have had enough.  We decided to try completely eliminating the night nursing and having my husband manage all of the night wakings (she won't settle for me at all without nursing) and it is not going well.  After three nights she is still waking at least every 2 hours and taking a while to settle down.  We have seen no improvement in her waking frequency (maybe it is just too soon?) and are wondering if we need to amend the plan.

Has anyone had success with decreasing night nursing instead of completely eliminating it? The Dr. Jay Gordon plan sounds good, but I wonder if the inconsistency would confuse and/or frustrate my girl since she can't tell time and wouldn't know what to expect.  The plan in Sleepless in America is similar, recommending that you gradually move the "okay to nurse" time later and later, hoping the wakings move later as well.  Same issue with inconsistency, but does it work?

What have you had success with?

[Mama_of_1]

We've been working on complete nightweaning between bedtime (currently anytime between 8:30 and 9:30) and sunrise.  We've had mixed results.  We've been able to eliminate all nursings but DD still wakes.

It's a predicament, definitely.

[RRMum]

We had success with moving the time later and later, started with a threshold of ten p.m. and every few days we would add 15 minutes.  It took a long time for the first couple of shifts to work (started at 9 months) but now he is 11 months and we make it until about 5 a.m. 6 of 7 nights, which I can live with.  We probably won't try to eliminate this last early morning feeding for another 6 months or so.  It was hard on me hearing him whipmer while DH rocked and sung to him, and hard on DH with little sleep, but it has been worth it and has really given some confidence to DH about his ability to calm and "nurse" our LO.  I think they bonded during the process.  A few times i slept in another room which seemed to help. Good luck, I'd say give it a little more time.

[friskykitty]

I really think sleeping through the night is a developmental thing.  My little man just night weaned this summer.  He's 3.5 years old.  We are down to nursing only to fall asleep and right before we get out of the bed.  He was waking every 2 hours without fail from birth.  The first month was really hard.  Every time he woke I would tell him yummies are sleeping you can have them when mr. sun comes up.  That resulted in lots of yelling,crying, tantruming, but it never lasted longer than a few minutes.  Now he will sleep an 8 hour stretch without waking most nights, and some nights even a 10 hour stretch. It does get better.  You have to do what is best for you as well though