I'm trying to night wean my 15 month old.

[ZJmom]

He wakes up several times after being put down but goes back down pretty easily, until 3am. After that he stays awake and gets more and more hysterical, crying for "boo" until I give in at 5am. But if I give in at 3am, he wants to nurse constantly and I get no sleep anyway. Any advice?
Edited by ZJmom - 3/23/12 at 10:25am

[neonalee]

We started to night wean around that age too, maybe a little earlier actually.  We cosleep, so he would nurse to sleep sometime between 7:30 - 9, nurse again around midnight, then no nursing until 5 or 530.  Obviously things like being sick & teething disrupted this routine.  I found that I needed to make sure he had enough to eat at dinner, and sometimes some yogurt right before bed, as he was getting hungry.  Also some nights he was thirsty.  Around 18 months or so we dropped the midnight nurse.  Now, at 19, almost 20 months, I'm finally getting him to accept cuddling (I've been asking if he wants to cuddle for months now).  So I guess the keys for me were making sure he wasn't getting hungry, thirsty, or too hot/cold.  It didn't happen quickly either... you didn't mention when you had started.

Also, did you see the advice from Dr Jay Gordan (Gorden?)  Google that if not, very helpful.

[ZJmom]

Thanks for your reply! We started a few weeks ago and I was actually going much better, but then db had a week-long stomach bug followed by a bad case of hives for a few days, so I let him nurse on demand while he wasn't feeling well. Now it's been a week of trying to get back on track, but he isn't having any of it. I'll read the Jay Gordon article. Thanks again!

[neonalee]

We had to start over 4 times if it makes you feel better =P you will need lots of patience for this!

sent from my phone using tapatalk, please forgive typos

[lifeguard]

We found the Jay Gordan website helpful. We nightweaned ds at 15 months & aimed for no nursing between 12-5. The big things that helped us were 1. doing it when dh was off work & we were both prepared for some rough nights (which actually didn't really happen) 2. keeping a waterbottle in bed & offering that when he woke. He would generally not want the waterbottle at first but once he took it he would drink & then go right back to sleep. To this day he still gets very thirsty in the night.