All night nurser/suckler

[alexa308]

I'm new here (just joined today) so I hope I'm posting this in the right place! I'm an attachment parenting, co-sleeping mama to an EBF baby. My baby girl is almost 6-months-old and has been waking me up every hour to comfort nurse/suckle for awhile now.  I want to fulfill her needs as much as possible so have always allowed her to comfort nurse during the night, but at about 4 months her need went from quietly nursing every few hours to waking me every hour for most the night (especially from midnight-6 am) and she is very desperate about it now (fussing, crying if I take too long getting her the breast, refusing any substitute soothing technique). I wanted to believe this was just a developmental phase since she started sitting up around the same time the problem began and has been blowing through milestones since then (rolling, becoming mobile, almost about to start crawling). But, it's been like this for almost 2 months now and I'm exhausted and am struggling to be my usual attentive, peppy self with her during the day. Rather than trying to work on getting her used to soothing other than the breast, I've been telling myself to hang in there because if it is developmental and she truly needs this much reassurance right now, then I don't want to deny her that and abandon her at a critical time. But, it's been going on awhile and I just don't know what to tell myself anymore or what to do or why it's happening. Sorry this is such a long post! Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks.

[skycheattraffic]

Would you be willing to offer a pacifier? She may take it if you make the switch while she's very drowsy. I had best luck with the first years gumdrops pacis but you may have to try a few to find what she likes. Using a paci sparingly at night while you cosleep shouldn't interfere with your nursing relationship or attachment. It could make a big difference to how much rest you get. At that age my DD didn't sleep too well since she was hitting the crawling stage. We didnt cosleep and if she didnt have the paci, I would have gotten zero rest. Don't get me wrong, she was still up a lot but it wasn't constant and I could spend some time sleeping in my bed in addition to passing out nursing in the recliner :-)

[stacyann21]

Are you nursing lying down? When my son was that age I nursed him throughout the night while lying on my side. Half the time, I didn't even wake up. I just wore something with really easy access and he found his way to it hehe. Just make it as easy as possible on yourself. Hang in there.