Pg w/#2 and night-weaning #1 not going well... Emotional support needed!!

[lisad1]

I'm 10 weeks pg and my dd who will be 4 in under a month still loves nursing. She nurses in the morning and to go to sleep. However, the milk is "gone," especially at night, and when she nurses an empty boob it is very uncomfortable for me. Tonight we're trying to go to sleep without nursing for the first time. She nursed for a few minutes until it was very uncomfortable and then I put a shirt on and told her we'd have milk in the morning. She was completely hysterical for 1.5 hours and finally just fell asleep with dh counting deep breaths with her. While she was hysterical, she would say "I don't want to do this anymore! I can't fall asleep without milk! I promise I'll go to sleep fast! I just can't stop crying!" I'm happy she went to sleep finally but this just feels so wrong and counters everything I truly felt was right about child-led weaning but nursing to sleep also feels physically wrong to me. I'm worried she won't trust me anymore or that she resents the baby for doing this. I'm torn on whether to continue with this tomorrow night. Any help or support or shared experiences would be so appreciated right now. Thanks, mamas

[HenAlexa]

How is it going?  What have you done since posting this?  I am curious because I want to night wean my daughter before our baby arrives in Dec., but I feel really ambivalent about it.  

[HenAlexa]

Nights are up and down.  We have had one night where she slept on her own till 5 am!  But since then she's gotten sick and woken up frequently.  I am afraid to take the step of telling her no "mum-mum" to fall back to sleep.  Especially since we have had a couple amazing nights in which she only woke up 2 times!  But I only have about two and a half months until the new baby.  I don't want her to feel displaced.  

[dancinganya]

I have just started nightweaning my 2.5 year old daughter and I never thought she would let it happen.  I guess I started with boundaries for nursing at bedtime because she was nursing for an hour or two and I was going NUTS.  So I would let her nurse and then we would rock in the rocking chair.  I would let her do each side once and before we the started the second side I would tell her that this would be the last time time.  I think she actually came up with the term, "Last nurse!" which I would make sure to say before we started.  That would help to prepare her for it though sometimes she still put up a fight afterwards.  If getting her to sleep at those times got to be more than I could handle, my husband would come in and within 20 minutes or less she would be asleep (again, she would cry but sometimes for only a few minutes).  So, that is how I started and then there were some nights when we would be rocking and she would fall asleep rocking because I told her we already did the "last nurse".  I also left the house for about a month or so twice a week at night so that my husband could practice putting her to sleep.  I knew if I was there hearing her scream I wouldn't be able to let him do it.  That was probably good conditioning for him helping me nightwean.  Before that he had barely put her to sleep once every 6 months because she was always adamant that Mommy should be the one to put her to sleep.

After a near passing out about a week ago nursing her, I decided I needed to get more serious.  I couldn't physically nurse her to sleep that night and I told her that I had no milk left for that night (which was TRUE so I felt fine saying it because it wasn't something I was making up to wean, it is just that my body is telling me it is time).  I did nurse her in the middle of the night that day, but the next day I was committed to starting nightweaning and I told her no more nursing until the sun comes up.  She screamed for sure, but not for long and we rocked to sleep together.  My husband went in for the first night waking and that also helped because I wasn't sure she would fall back asleep without nursing.  She screamed again for maybe 5 minutes, but then she fell right to sleep.  I went in later that night for one more waking at 3:30am and I rocked her back to sleep, which wasn't as hard as I thought (though figuring out the transfer took me more than a few tries).   When she woke next at 6:30am and we nursed, it felt good!  I was happy to nurse her at that point and she was so happy to nurse... and I actually had some milk which I had thought was completely gone.

Anyway, I hope my story helps you.  I think my own resolve about the matter was the most important in every situation.  The more confident I was about it, the more confident my daughter was/is.  My sister has been telling me to nightwean since 18 months, but I wasn't ready until now.  Maybe with the next one I'll be able to do it earlier knowing that I did it once with another child... who knows... but I'm happy with the process right now.

On another note, my sister tandem nursed and was just telling me that she called a local La Leche League Chapter and spoke with someone else who did and that was really helpful for her.  Perhaps if you have the right boundaries, you could try that route as well.  Every situation, child, and parent is different... that is more and more apparent to me the longer I'm a mother.

Good luck!