need support to get my husband to help with weaning

[horizon19]

 I am looking for some support. My son is 21 months old and I stopped feeding him through the night at least a month ago but he still wakes and just loses his mind when I go in the room and refuse the breast. I asked my husband to start going in at night (because my son basically lies down and goes to sleep upon seeing daddy). My husband says it is all in how I am when I go in the room(which is actually very calm, quiet, with food & water, and then I just lay down and sleep on the floor-so I am sure I am not worked up or emitting anger or frustration-he says I must "make my son mad" by the "way I am" and that I should continue to "practice" getting good at getting him to sleep-yes I know this is a HUGE crock of you know what).

Anyway-I am looking for other mom's experience to support my theory that the child is working from instincts-he wants milk and that is ALL that he thinks of when he sees me. It is totally different for the child when someone other the breastfeeding mom goes in the room. I am also trying to tell him this is a short term thing if we work together.

[RStelle]

We just started night-weening last week and it is going really well, but yeah, I definitely couldn't do it without my partner's help. I guess that works for some but not for us. Here's what we do: Before we started for the first night, I explained to her "Tonight is going to be different because after we go to bed, Mama is going to sleep all night long, and me-me is going to go to sleep too. So there will be no me-me all night long", we went over it a few times and she seemed to understand. That night my partner woke up with her, and just kept saying "Mama is sleeping and me-me is sleeping too, you can have me-me in the morning". I was amazed at how well it went over, because normally she was waking up every 2 hours and there was no way I could refuse or she would freak out. Now she only wakes up once to have a drink of water and goes right back to sleep no problem, and it's only been a week. I can here her saying "Me-me? Sleeping!" in the other room, it's so cute. Also, I think it may be the end of co-sleeping for us because before night weaning she would never sleep by herself, but not she is happy in the other room. I'm sure we will have some setbacks but overall it has been so easy! I am going to try going in to comfort her myself in a few more days and see how that goes, I think it will be OK. 

It did take me a little bit of work to get my partner to do the nighttime parenting. She was just used to me doing it all at night so she never woke up when DD woke up because she didn't need to, or she would just go right back to sleep if she did wake up. For a few weeks before we started night weaning I was trying to get her to take a role in the nighttime parenting and she would just say that she "just didn't wake up", that was totally just an excuse, she had just gotten use to not doing anything at night. Finally  I realized it was going to be all or nothing and I basically just decided how it was going to go and was like "Look, I've been doing all the work in this department for the past 18 months, now it's your turn, so here's what you are going to do". For the first few nights I had to wake her up when DD woke up, but now she does it on her own. I didn't put it this way, but in reality I was weaning my partner off of not doing any of the nighttime parenting just as much as we were night weaning DD. 

Anyway, um, I do have to say it sound like your husband is just being lazy and trying to hide it by blaming you, which is not cool at all. All I can say is that night weaning has gone really smoothly for us, and there is no way it would have it I had been the one going in to comfort DD. It sounds like there is no way it will go smoothly for you unless your husband is willing to step it up. Let us know how things go!

[Quinalla]

It makes a huge difference if the person with the breasts full of milk or the person without are the one coming in, ask him to try walking in with her favorite snack and favorite comfort item and telling her she can't have it (not exactly the same, but somewhat close) and see how easily she goes to bed for him Heck, even with BFing no longer an issue, my DD still responds very differently to DH and I for the initial putting to bed and any wake-ups, even though I am the tougher and firmer of the two of us, she pushed much harder with me. He can go from playing and tickling to a sleeping child in about 5 minutes, I can NEVER do that. Your DH needs to get off his mansplaining high horse and listen to you and then help you. to you!

[sahmmie]

Ugh... this makes me so mad!!!! I get the feeling that your husband just doesn't want to get up in the middle of the night to tend to his son. I agree with you completely that your son associates you with MILK and when you come into the room he expects to be nursed. If your husband would graciously and lovingly agree to walk into the room so that your son will lie down and go to sleep, your son will probably be sleeping through the night in just a few weeks and the association in his mind that you and MILK are one will subside or even disappear. 

Your husband needs to be a partner!    I'm not a marriage counselor so I can't give you much advice on how to get your husband to help you, but I'd tell him that it would mean a lot to you if he would help you with this and then show him much appreciation if he rises to the ocassion!!!