I'm not sure where to post to ask for help as my issue has to do with pregnancy, toddlerhood, nightime parenting, and breastfeeding. The breastfeeding history seems to be a major factor in what's going on.
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I'm 5 months pregnant. Prior to getting pregnant, DD was nursing down for naps and bedtime and back to sleep, maybe every 1-3 hours at night. My milk dried up fairly quickly, probably within a month of pregnancy. When this happened, DD's sleep went totally crazy, and it took me a couple of months to realize that she was hungry and a good solution for us is to give her a cup of milk when she goes down for naps and bedtime. A couple of weeks ago, she started STTN, I suppose because she had no physiological need to nurse. Now, I can not get her to sleep enough! She's ridiculously sleep-deprived. Every time she wakes up from morning and naps, she cries, screams, and makes irrational demands for about an hour. The second she wakes up, she's running for the door and asking for something weird, like...to go in the garage, pickles, etc. The ONLY thing that calms her down or 1 out of 20 times can get her to sleep more is letting her hold onto my breast, which is torture because she always tries to play with my nipple. Even though I never let her, she gets really upset towards another tantrum. Her STTN has also led to a shift in the hours that she sleeps, currently 9:30-6:30, and a 45 minute nap around 1.
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Why is she waking up like that? Is it only because she needs to sleep more? Does it have to do with changes in sleep patterns? She'll do this even if she sleeps 10 hours straight at night.
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Should I just not let her ever touch my boobs again? How long will it take her to get over it? I have to say that I did actively try to nightwean when I was in my first trimester, and it lasted 2 months, ending in my giving up.
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We're working on getting her to bed earlier, but DH doesn't get home from work until 6 and it takes close to 2 hours for bedtime snack, shower, potty-time, toothbrushing, story, lights out, fall asleep (it takes her about 30-45 min to fall asleep). We got her to sleep at 8:30 after cooking and eating dinner in 30 minutes.
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