The night time nursling!

[fraufranke]

Hi all! My youngest is two years old, and I am hoping to get some suggestions on how to reduce our night time nursing sessions. I nurse him down to sleep on a mattress in his room, and at some point in the night he migrates to my bed. He nurses then again to fall back asleep , and periodically through the night as well. For the most part, I don't feel the need to change anything...but there are some nights that he nurses for over an hour at a time and I'd like to keep this to a minimum! I can sleep while he is nursing, but it's not as comfortable anymore on my side with my arm up and over his head, kwim? 

Any suggestions on how to help him cut back on those sessions? Thanks!

[dancinganya]

If you take your nipple out of his mouth does he wake up?  Sometimes my 2.5 year old daughter just needs me to take the thing out of her mouth and she rolls over and falls back asleep...  Actually, now that I think of it, there were times many months ago when I would have to get up and walk her back to sleep when she obviously couldn't fall asleep nursing in the middle of the night.  It was not fun to get out of bed, but she always fell asleep faster that way so I would push myself to get up with the knowledge that she would go to sleep faster that way and I would be able to get back to sleep.

[babygirlsmama]

I usually nurse my daughter to sleep in rocker, then lay her in our bed where we co-sleep the rest of the night.  On a recent week's vacation, I had to nurse her lying down -- and it seemed to lead to many more night nursings.  At a LLL meeting one of the leaders picked up on this, and pointed out to me that when babies fall asleep lying down nursing, they expect it more.  She encouraged me to stick with the old scheme (rocker, then lay in bed). 

It helped....a lot!  Just a thought.  Maybe a similar technique could work for you?

Babygirlsmama