Lol, Kirsten, your roomie's crying night weaned babies give me less hope about nightweaning helping but my kids co-slept until they were 6. They both night weaned between 1.5 and 2 (but dd started night nursing again after a move and was night weaned a second time between 2 and 3). All my friends said, just have your partner start handling the wake ups. That was attempted a couple of times with the oldest but my partner was not about getting up at night. She would try offering him a snack or drink or cuddles. Eventually we put a nightlight on a timer and told him the milk was sleeping and he could nurse when the nightlight came on they would wake up. We would cuddle or sing and a couple of times we did discretely turn the nightlight on because he was obviously having none if it. The rest of the night I would tell him (we did this during the day, too) we will nurse while I sing this song. Then I will sing another song while we cuddle. During the day I would start the song when I felt almost done. At night I would start it right away. I was pregnant at the time, so I was motivated. My milk supply was also dropping which surely helped. He nightweaned but went on to nurse for years more. I had read the no cry sleep solution much earlier but waking up and writing down things in the middle of the night exhausted me more than the sleeping through nursing I was doing. I did pick up some of her unlatching advice and I became a master unlatcher. I unlatch in a way where I push on the side of my breast and that both allows air in and flips my nipple sideways out of his mouth. The breast stays against his lips and he doesn't seem to notice when he's asleep.
With DD, I did some nightlight and some singing. I was motivated to nightwean her because I changed to a night shift job. She was nearly 2 and it was very smooth but she continued night waking for drinks of water and to go potty. She's 7 and she still wakes at night to drink from her water bottle or go potty. She does that independently.
Shay has been a pretty great sleeper all his life for nights, anyway. He wakes more when he's sick but generally only nurses when I come to bed and about an hour before I want to get up.
Soren seems to be reverse cycling. He is up every 45-90 minutes. Sara goes out of town tomorrow and I'm going to try my hardest to get him on a day nursing routine. I'm hoping to nurse and give him lots of bottles during the day and change his diaper and rock him to sleep every other wake up. And nurse the other wake ups. Sara isn't planning to pump at night, so hopefully when she comes home her night supply will be lower than her day supply and we will all be sleeping better. I'm going to do daily weights because he's on the small side to begin with and I will scrap the plan if I need to.
With DD, I did some nightlight and some singing. I was motivated to nightwean her because I changed to a night shift job. She was nearly 2 and it was very smooth but she continued night waking for drinks of water and to go potty. She's 7 and she still wakes at night to drink from her water bottle or go potty. She does that independently.
Shay has been a pretty great sleeper all his life for nights, anyway. He wakes more when he's sick but generally only nurses when I come to bed and about an hour before I want to get up.
Soren seems to be reverse cycling. He is up every 45-90 minutes. Sara goes out of town tomorrow and I'm going to try my hardest to get him on a day nursing routine. I'm hoping to nurse and give him lots of bottles during the day and change his diaper and rock him to sleep every other wake up. And nurse the other wake ups. Sara isn't planning to pump at night, so hopefully when she comes home her night supply will be lower than her day supply and we will all be sleeping better. I'm going to do daily weights because he's on the small side to begin with and I will scrap the plan if I need to.
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