night weaning... why, when and how?

[loving-my-babies]

My ds is only -almost- a year old, so I don't plan to nightwean at all... right now. But I have been reading some nightweaning threads, I also saw someone mention Dr Jay Gordon's technique for night weaning.. and I am wondering ( just curious)..

why did some of you decide to nightwean?
how would you know if the child is ready to nightwean and how did you do it?
How has his/her sleeping habits changed with nightweaning?
Is it possible to nightwean and continue cosleeping?

Thanks.. now that ds will be a "toddler" I am trying to read about toddler nursing and everything that it entails.

Thanks ladies!

[willow83]

well I was going to this horrible clinic who told me not to cosleep! The nerve! But they also told me to stop feeding her at night because when she gets teeth it will cause rotting for them to sleep with milk on their gums. Has anyone not night weened and found this to be true??

[TiredX2]

why did some of you decide to nightwean?

We have not nightweaned DS. (BTW, I consider nightweaned to be at least 4-5 hours)

With DD I was 2 months pg, had just gotten over mono and simply could not continue waking up every 1-2 hours all night long. I determined that I needed at least a 4-5 hour window and we decided to go for it. She was 25 months at the time.

how would you know if the child is ready to nightwean and how did you do it?

Well, if DD had protested extinsively I would have gone back to "pre-nightweaning" but it went smoothly. I would nurse her at bedtime (9-9:30ish) then before I got in bed (11ish) and then DP would hold her off to 2am (to start). After a few days we stretched that to 4-5 hours and then stopped making an effort. She stretched it longer somenights, but when I was in labor with DS she did nurse that night in the middle of the night (what may have been, in retrospect, transition). I do not remember when she gave up the middle of the night nursings, but it was sometime after three.

How has his/her sleeping habits changed with nightweaning?

Well, she went longer. And she started sleeping slightly less (since it was more continuous I assume). We still cuddle to sleep many nights (she is 6) but she can put her self to sleep (and does some nights) and even on occasion sleeps the entire night in her room.

Is it possible to nightwean and continue cosleeping?

Yes. The first couple nights DP had to take DD out of the room because she could smell me and just walk up and down with her, patting her back, but after that she was back in our bed full time.

But they also told me to stop feeding her at night because when she gets teeth it will cause rotting for them to sleep with milk on their gums. Has anyone not night weened and found this to be true??

All scientific evidence points to breastmilk as a liquid that actually strengthens tooth enamel. The real culprit (besides genetics--- it is said that if a nursing child gets cavities it is in SPITE of, not because of the bmilk) is other foods left on the teeth. So, you definately need to brush your babies teeth REALLY, REALLY well before bed!

That said, DD had cavities on her top two teeth. BUT, when her teeth came in (late, at 10 & 11 months) you could already see a faint white line across them. I think the treatment we decided to do (direct flouride application) actually worsened the situation and she ended up having them filled. She has had no other problems, but I really look forward to her loosing those teeth (she has the ceramic fillings, but plaque tends to build up on the fillings themselves---unsightly).

DS has had no problems. His pediatric dentist has never encouraged us to wean. He is 41 months (today!) and still night nurses frequently (and honestly, we are not that great about teeth brushing where we were fanatic with DD--- definately DD just had weaker teeth).

[stafl]

I never nightweaned my children. They stopped nursing at night when they no longer needed to nurse at night. If they wake up needing to nurse, I will nurse them, either one of them, still. We continue to cosleep and have had no problems whatsoever. Nobody in my family has ever had dental cavities until past the age of 30, it's not an issue of great concern to me. I believe cavities are more a result of genetics than anything else. Some people get them no matter how carefully they clean and take care of their teeth, other people can totally neglect their dental hygeine and have perfect teeth. It's a mystery!

[Pynki]

We are night weaning ds 3.. I need more than 2 hrs of sleep at a time..

I feed him before bed.. Nurse him if he wants.. Then we put him down.. The 1st night he woke up.. I told him.. Momma goes ni ni.. Daddy goes ni ni.. Na na's go ni ni.. Liam goes ni ni.. He fussed.. I rubbed his back and softly shh=ed him.. He went back to sleep and slept untl 8 am. The next night he slept straight through.. 11 hrs.. I was amazed.. Last night he woke up and 2, and wouldn't go back to sleep so I nursed him and he went back to sleep unitl 730.. It's working well for us, and I feel MUCH better as a momma with more sleep..

Warm Squishy feelings..

Dyan

[Calidris]

I have no plans to night wean Fern yet (she's about 11.5 mo) but she has amazed me recently by falling asleep without the breast a few times (not at my pushing, once when I was nursing her and she just popped off, played and drifted off to sleep next to me other times in the car). She is also quite willing to be patted back to sleep most of the times when she stirs in the night (if she persists I nurse). She has gone recently from nursing every 2 or 3 hours (never really waking tho) to sleeping from bed time (9 - 10pm) til ~ 4 am (sometimes other nights she will nurse a couple times in between). then she cluster nurses from 4 - 6 am which is a bit annoying since I like that morning sleep and the every 15 min nursing gets frustrating (but I remind myself that she didnt nurse all night).
Now that I write this tho, I am wondering, is that ok, am I doing something wrong? should I be glad she's doing it on her own or should I worry she will wean early?

[TigerTail]

it's not all-or-nothing... the boys have their own beds/room now, but the little one still wakes at about anywhere from 3 to 6 and gets taken to bed with me. a lot easier to go back to sleep nursing him, than try to 'train' him before he is ready, or attempt sleep all night with him waking to nurse everytime i twitch or exhale.

it's been a natural evolution from cosleeping, to cosleeper, to crib in my room, to crib across the hall (big boy beds of course, now.) easier on everybody than trying a dramatic change.

suse

[BetsyPage]

I have no plans to limit nursing at night at the moment... although I confess that sometimes I am not as "sensitive" to dd's need to nurse as I was when she was an infant... occassionally she will want to nurse when I am laying on my back, and I didn't feel like turning over b/c I was comfortable... sometimes I can pat her and she will go back to sleep, but other times she will crawl on me and pull up my shirt and latch on! If she's that determined to nurse I will generally roll over to better accommodate her at that point, unless she seems comfy already.

At this point, there is such variation in her night-nursing that I know she does it for a reason... sometimes I nurse her to sleep, and she doesn't nurse until daylight, other times it's hourly. I feel confident that when she doesn't need to nurse, she won't... however, if it is a problem for me down the road then I would reconsider... probably only if I was pregnant and she was nursing too much and it was painful, and that probably won't happen until she's over 2, and hopefully would be more verbal.

[stafl]

Originally Posted by Calidris

Now that I write this tho, I am wondering, is that ok, am I doing something wrong? should I be glad she's doing it on her own or should I worry she will wean early?

NO!!! You are NOT doing anything wrong! You are doing everything right! You are following your child's lead, making sure all of her needs are met. You can't do any better than that. No, it won't lead to early weaning (not any earlier than whatever age is right for your particular child), or my almost-four-year-old wouldn't still be nursing. Children naturally at some point don't need to nurse at night anymore, or maybe their need for sleep overrides the need to nurse. Nobody has to nightwean, the children will do it on their own eventually. For some that is much earlier than others, but it would happen on its own no matter what you do. Enjoy the sleep!! I know I do I've always figured the cluster-feeding was a fair enough trade for getting to sleep longer periods of time. No complaints here!

[Girl Named Sandoz]

Ds is 2.5. I never night weaned him. He still wakes sometimes to nurse (we co-sleep) but he nurses very little during the day, and I just take it as it comes. For us, there was no way of doing night weaning that didn't traumatise me or him. I can't bear to let him cry. It breaks my heart.

I am so used to it by now that it really doesn't bother me and night feedings have naturally decreased over time.

[nancy926]

We cosleep, and we nightweaned DD at 2. I just could not take waking up 3 or 4 times a night and nursing her....I am not the type who can just pop the boob in and fall asleep again (I sleep best on my stomach).

We explained that the milk would have to sleep at night now, and after she fell asleep it would sleep until morning. we did't do gradual nightweaning, though I did try popping her off before she was completely asleep before we actually nightweaned.

The first couple of nights she complained, but it was forced crying, not "real" (if your kid's ever "fake cried", you know what I mean) and she stopped after I started telling her that everything was sleeping, and talked about her friends who were sleeping, the dogs that were sleeping, etc....

Now she will wake up usually once a night, sometimes ask for milk, but not complain if I say it's sleeping. Sometimes she goes back to sleep without saying a thing and sometimes she never wakes up.

It took about 6 months for me to get to the point where i truly felt I had to nightwean her for everyone's continued sanity, lol. we have friends who tried for 2 nights w/their 17-mo-old but she screamed and was really upset, so they're going to wait a few months and try again if need be.

hth,
nancy
(nak!)

[velcromom]

I have not night weaned, ds is 26 months and normally wakes early in the am to nurse then sleeps for a bit longer - he does that 3-4 x a week and other nights he will wake one other time as well. When he was waking three or four times a night and I knew it was due to things like teething, a cold or developmental jumps, I just couldn't see that as a reason to night wean since the wakings were due to a real need. So what I did was shorten the length of his nighttime nursings gradually til he would fall asleep after just a few minutes on only one side. It increased the amount of sleep I got and I wasn't so exhausted.

He only in the last 4 months began sleeping bedtime to morning, so it's been a long road but I am happy with my choice. Now if he wakes I will help him back to sleep with whatever he needs - sometimes it's just a hug and to be tucked in, sometimes it's a quick comfort nursing session.

I have been seeing him move towards sleeping longer since he was about 17 months, that's when he finally began sleeping more than 2-3 hours in a row, and about that time he began falling asleep more independently by occassionally unlatching and sitting up when he was ready for me to put him down. (That part I think was helped along by our use of the Pantley Pull-Off removal method.) Now at bedtime he goes into his crib beside my bed after nursing, wide awake, and falls asleep on his own. I did nothing but the Pull-Off to encourage that, and it's nice to see his sleep patterns developing and feel comfortable with how we got there.

I have been fortunate in that since I am able to stay home with him, I have been able to nap during the day during really rough phases of many nightwakings. If I was not able to do that, I very well may have chosen a more direct way of gently influencing his sleep patterns.

[Too Busy]

I don't think there is a time to/or not to nightwean once you are ebf. You have to look at your own situation and if the situation is out of balance and you are unhappy or resentful then consider nightweaning an option.

In my own personal situation, I was getting very little, broken-up sleep (4-5 hours over 30-40 minute spans between wakings), ill and growing evermore resentful of my DD. I will openly admit that the extended period of time that this went on (14 months) wore on me and I began to detach myself from my DD. When I realized that was happening I began exploring our options and we began to nightwean.

This is our last resort and I don't think nighweaning should ever be done with a child that is not ready or as a first option.

My DD sleeps on a futon by our mattress and my DH snuggles with her to sleep. I still consider us cosleeping because our mattress isn't big enough for 3 and we needed the futon addition and my DH is with her at night. Her sleep habits have changed significantly, last night she slept for 5 hours straight, which hasn't happened in forever. She also accepts my DH as a comforter, which allows me to get some unbroken sleep.

Also, I had no concerns about cavities from nightnursing. My dentist even told methat there is a lot of evidence that breastfeeding actually strengthens teeth and that a lot of dental problems are genetic.

[Mandytilf]

Good luck with whatever you decide to do! My dd is 13 months old, and she usually sleeps through, but sometimes she does still nurse during the night. I don't have any plans to night wean though. It's not an issue with us.

[slightly crunchy]

I guess I nightweaned ds, though it was so easy that I would say I gently encouraged night weaning. It was nothing like the Jay Gordon plan. Every mom has to decide what is best for their family. Though ds was a frequent night waker til almost 2 years old, and I considered that nightweaning plan off and on from age 1 to 2, it just ended up seeming a little too harsh for us. I actually tried it one time around 15 months old, and didn't even make it through one night.

When ds was 21 months, he finished getting all his baby teeth in. This is when he started sleeping a 5-6 hour stretch fairly consistently. He did this for a few months, then shortly after he turned 2, he started waking again, a lot. I quickly became exhausted. I often wasn't able to fall asleep again after nursing him, even though he was still in our bed. He was just starting to get the concept of "we get up when the sun comes up but when it's dark out, we sleep". During the day, we would talk about how mama milks also go to sleep when it's dark. At night, I kind of just played it by ear. I continued to nurse him when he woke until DH and I went to bed for the night. After 11 or 12 if he woke, I told him milks were sleeping and asked him to wait until the sun came up. If he was really upset and seemed to need it, I would go ahead and nurse him. Most of the time, though, he was fine with it and rolled over and went to sleep. I would generally still nurse him in the early morning, 4 or 5 am, and we would fall back asleep and nurse on and off til we woke up. Gradually, he started sleeping longer and longer and after some months, he was sleeping 10 and 12 hours at night without waking. He was still in our bed (still is) for most or usually all of the night. He also still nursed to sleep until I was a few months pregnant and then he started to nurse first, finish, then fall asleep.

So, it was pretty easy. I guess I didn't know for sure he was ready until I tried it. But I knew for sure he wasn't ready before then. Does that make sense? Also, the fact that he had started sleeping longer without nursing on his own, clued me in. I think continuing to have a family bed helped a lot. I was always right there and would still nurse him if it was a true need. There was no major crying or upset involved. I guess ideally we would have continued nursing as much as he wanted at night, and probably he would have started sleeping longer on his own again after a few more months. But, I was having a really hard time, and wasn't always the most patient and loving mama at night at that point anymore when I was up every couple hours and couldn't get back to sleep. So that's what worked for us.

[wende]

I decided last night to give night weaning a shot. I'm 26 weeks pregnant and just cannot handle him waking up every 1-2 hours to nurse. It has seriously made me feel angry about bfing, and I've never felt that way before. I know that I need more sleep and am not handling the touched out/non-rested feeling well at all. Plus, once I'm awake now I have the hardest time going back to sleep. After about 15 minutes of sleep last night, and after being in bed for hours, I finally told him no more milkies for the night. He whined and fussed and tried to get at my breasts but after a few failed attempts (and no serious crying) he went back to sleep. I cuddled and patted him and he was great and I got a 5 hour stretch out of him. Normally, I don't think I'd night wean, but I think in my situation (and everyone knows where their own limits are) it was the best thing for our nursing relationship (so I can continue to enjoy it durring the day) and our relationship as a whole.

[arcenciel]

My dd is 15 months now and I have been thinking about night-weaning her recently. It is only recently that she has started to understand things I say to her, so before I wouldn't have been able to say 'no' and it mean something to her.

Having said that, what I'm doing at the moment is to try and encourage her to fall asleep off the breast, in the evening and during the day. I'm hoping that if she gets used to that then she may not need to feed so much during the night. She feeds at least every couple of hours and I think it's more out of habit of falling asleep that way than a need to nurse.

So at the moment if she wakes up I try rubbing her back but if she doesn't go back to sleep that way I will nurse her. I night weaned both my ds' - the older one around 18months because I was tandem feeding and the nights were a mess with 2 screaming babes because i could never nurse them both at the same time - and ds#2 a bit later. Neither of them started sleeping through after I night-weaned them, though it meant sometimes dh could go to them instead of me.

I'm not going to night wean dd right now, but we'll see how it goes.

[carrietorgc]

we nightweaned about 6 wks ago. In early dec. i found out I was pregnant, and dd went from nursing once at night (she starts out in her bed, then comes to ours) to nursing ALL NIGHT. so i hung in there for 6 wks, but when the supply dropped and she was dry nursing for hrs at a time, we tried to see if she was ready.

we did a modified jay gordon plan. I would explain that the milk was gone, that she could have her sippy of water, etc. fussing the first few nights, after that she was fine. sometimes she still wakes around 4-5 and asks, but accepts that there is no more milk until the am.

i would have been ok with her continuing if i hadn't become pregnant....

[Mother Mel]

Wow, you mamas are truly inspiring. I came to this thread tonight b/c my DD (25 months) has been driving me a little bonkers lately with her extended nursing. Most of the time I think it's dry nursing out of habit than anything else and my poor old nipples are starting to hurt! She still nurses countless times during the day and it's often a challenge to get her to eat -- mama's milk tastes better, she tells me. How can I argue with that??
We're still co-sleeping...well, I'm sleeping in her double bed while DH enjoys the big bed to himself...she can usually go about 4-5 hours without nursing most nights, but is still a fan of the cluster feeding after about 4 AM. I am considering nightweaning, but any time I get frustrated, I come to mothering.com and you wonderful women put me back on track. I'm a SAHM, with only DD to look out for, so I guess I will just let her lead me. I am curious about "the No Cry Sleep Solution" though; anyone out there have any comments?

[Mama2ABCD]

when i decided to nightwean my sons, i was already past my 1st tri of my 3rd preg. i had been tandem nursing at night for over 2 yrs. my oldest was 3 1/2, and my 2nd was 2yrs 2mos. my milk had dried up this preg, but they were still nursing 2x a night (plus nursing at bedtime, and wakeup). at least they woke at about the same time. it was a hard decision to make, because i had gotten them that far, but i really, really did not want to nurse 3 at night. and i had no idea how long the weaning would take place. i did know that when either of them spent the niight at their grandparents, they slept all night. and, each had all their teeth.
so i phased out one night feeding. i explained before what i was going to do. and when they woke i just snuggled, talk gently, and held their hands. and then i phased out the second. it took a month, and it went much quicker then i expected. but, they seemed to have taken it without any complaint. i explained that they could nurse when the sun was up. and i remember my oldest asking/commenting in the middle of the night that he'd get ninners when the sun came up.
seems like we had gotten thru the weaning when each of us got real sick. so, for sickness they get unlimited nighttime nursing. so finally after getting thru the weaning, and sickies, it took my body a few weeks to adjust to not waking at all during the night. i got 4 mos where i slept thru the night before the arrival of #3. it was a nice break. now, my 3rd is 10 1/2 mos and i enjoy waking to nurse her. i really like nursing on my side, and i did not like nursing lying on my back (not while trying to sleep).
my 2nd child sleeps so good during the night. my 1st likes to sleep with me most of the time. he goes to bed and falls asleep on his own, but he likes knowing that i'll be there at some point. and if he wakes and i'm not there, he will find me. 2nd won't come into my bed unless he wakes in the morning before me.
now, my 2nd likes to hold my hand while hiking, whereas the first likes to be free. i think each child has their little security that they need.
all 3 of my kids nurse before they go to sleep (but only the baby nurses to sleep), and then each nurses when they wake. right now, they all wake at seperate times so i get to spend time with each child alone with the wakeup nursing.
there are times i get so confused over who's in my bed, that i might nurse one of the boys thinking it's their sis! oh well, as long as it's not one of the cats but they usually sleep outside.