The Dr. Jay Gordon method of night weaning

[Brigitte&Eitan]

Hi everyone! My question is for those of you who have done Dr. Jay's night weaning technique (or are familiar with a similar method); who is responsible for comforting the child? DH or the Mommy? I have heard that it works best for mom to be out of the room during the night weaning process... on the other hand, it would be pretty hard for most men to miss sleep for many nights! What are people's thoughts? Also, what about naps? DS won't nap unless my nipple is in his mouth!

[lisamarie]

I'm not familiary w/his method of night weaning. Can you guys help me out here, where I could find more info. on it? Thanks.

Warmly~

Lisa

[Brigitte&Eitan]

Sure! Go to www.drjaygordon.com I don't think there is a period after dr, but try it w/ one if this url doesn't work.
~~ Brigitte

[acsw]

We did it with me offering the comfort. It went pretty easily for us, only a couple of minutes of crying. Ds is actually in a phase where he cries more if I'm not there. We are going to have to do it again bc a cold and 6 teeth coming in led me to nurse again so he wouldn't stay up for 2 hours in the middle of the night.

[smiley]

we're planning to try this method of nightweaning in the next few weeks. Initially we planned for dh to comfort ds, but now that I've been thinking about it, the whole nightweaning thing involves altering the relationship between mother and child and I'm not sure abandonment is the way to work through this in a healthy way. So, I think I will be the comforter. Any advice or insights?

[leafylady]

I handled the comforting because dh is/was useless at night. He's great during the day, but no good for night time parenting.

[acsw]

I had the same feeling that for my ds having dh take over was too much of a change.
Anne

[dotcommama]

thanks for the link!

I'm getting ready to start night weaning my 18 month old. He has two cavities in his front teeth and I want to night wean to decrease his chances at getting more (you can see my post over in the dental thread).

Anyway, I liked Dr. Gordon's approach, it seems very gentle. I'm going to start on Friday I'll let you know how it goes!

[LoriB]

I used the Dr. Jay method when dd was 12 mos. I think she cried more the first couple of nights when I would stop bf just before she fell back asleep. Boy did that get her angry! But all in all the crying was usually only a few minutes. I think I did most of the comforting. I just said over and over "Mommy sleeps Baby Sleeps" and rubbed her back, kissed her a lot, sang "hush little baby". If it was really bad I may have picked her up and walked around or rocked her in the rocking chair. DD is now 16 mos and almost weaned (she bfs once or twice a week) but she still cosleeps and occassionally wakes up at night. Sometimes DH will just lay her on his fuzzy chest and she's off to dreamland again.

[lilyka]

We did a sort of modified Dr. Gordon thing. I slept on the couch and there wasn't much crying. She still nurses to sleep but we are trying to end that. My husband always comforted at night because it was eiser for her to accept that daddy wasn't going to nurse her to sleep. His don't work. She has tried. She usually fussed for only a few moments befor drifting back to sleep. Not so with me. Now I can rub her back or whatnot to get her back to sleep in a very short time (4 or 5 rubs is all I can muster in the middle of the night). It was kinda brutal the first few days but it has really saved my sanity and our nursing relationship.

[dotcommama]

question for those that have night weaned:

Do you find that now that you are not nursing at night that your child sleeps through the night? Just curious. In my case I'm not doing it to get a better nights sleep, but I have to say I wouldn't be sad if it had that unintended side effect.

[Brigitte&Eitan]

WOW!!! You guys are so awesome for being such great mommies- I think that this whole buisiness of nusing at night/ not nursing at night is the hardest thing! Thanks so much for all of your words of wisdom I think that dh and I will have to share the night weaning chore.. you know, spread the joy around, so to speak! Dotcomma, I am anxious to hear how it goes for you!

Peace,
Brigitte

[dotcommama]

Brigitte&Eitan - Thanks for the interest. I wasn't going to start until Friday, but last night when ds woke up he nursed for a bit and I though he was asleep so tried to lay him back down and he started to cry and I figured - well I might as well just jump right in. I hugged and patted him and just kept saying, "No more milk. Drew go night-night, Mommy go night-night, milk go night-night." I think it went okay. He only whimpered for a few minutes. The "mommy mommy milk!" plea was very very hard to ignore especially at 1 in the morning, but I managed. He woke up two other times and we went through the same deal - nurse for a minute or two lay him back down - talk, pat, snuggle while he whimpered a bit then went back to sleep. I've been letting him nurse as much as he wants during the day today so he knows that he's not getting cut off all together. He seemed a little tired today, but other than that no worse for the wear. Keep your fingers crossed for me tonight.

[acsw]

Great dotcommama--that's how it was for us! Such a relief. Really the most he cried was for 3 minutes--maybe that much and usually it was a short protest. It helped me to feel that he was really ready to nightwean. We have just gone through 4 weeks of nightwaking again with 6 teeth coming in and a cold and a crazy holiday schedule so we are nightweaning again and it's even easier the second time!!!!!! Yay for a sane and gentle way.
Anne

[Brigitte&Eitan]

Dotcommama YEAH! I bet you are exhausted, but I have heard that once kids are nightweaned, they do sleep much better, so hang in there. Keep us posted... you're my hero!

[dotcommama]

Thanks!

I don't think I ever been someone hero before! :LOL

It went fairly well again. He woke up twice. This time he protested a bit more. He actually sat up in bed next to me and beat my chest with his fist. So sad! He only did it for a minute and then I started singing to him and hugging and he calmed down. I don't think either time it took more than five minutes to get him back to sleep.

Of course I stayed awake each time for at least an hour feeling guilty for depriving my child of his favorite comfort at night - yes I'm just that foolish. So he's not too tired, but I am!

So one more night like this and than I move to the big guns - no mama milk at all from 10:00pm-7:00am. Oh boy I think it's going to get a lot tougher!

[mama joy]

We did the Gordon nightweaning too. It was a lifesaver. I did the comforting, and there was minimal crying. The best part was being able to keep the family bed intact while we nightweaned and afterwards.
Good luck!!!!

[Brigitte&Eitan]

Dotcommama,
What are you going to do about ds's naps? Does he nurse to sleep during the day? Also- how often did he wake to nurse at night before you started the weaning process?? Hang in there!

Brigitte

[dotcommama]

We are still planning to nurse to sleep (at least for now), but we're trying to stop the nursing in the middle of the night. The dentist really doesn't won't us to nurse him to sleep at all, but I just can't even imagine that working. I figure I'm going to night wean first and see how that goes and then maybe work on getting him to fall asleep without the boob.

On average he would wake up about 4-5 times - some nights he would wake up every hour I found it really depended on how much he ate at dinner time. If he was hungry he woke up a lot more than when he had a full tummy.

Last night didn't go so well. He did okay until he woke up at 5 and I couldn't get him back to sleep until 6:30. He wasn't really crying, just not sleeping wiggling around asking for milk every so often. At least he finally did go back to sleep and then slept until 10:00 this morning - so I guess I can't complain too much. Other than that he only woke two other times and cried for maybe 30 seconds and then fell back to sleep easily - all he needed was me to cuddle him.

So I'm nervous about tonight - which is to refuse him nursing entirely - no even for a minute. I'm just going to cross my fingers.

Thank you for being my little cheering squad - it helps so much to know I have people to come and discuss this with, share ideas and vent went needed!

[sully]

I used Dr. Gordon's method on my now 21 month old when he was about 17-18 months and let me tell you it was the best thing I ever did. For 18 months he was up at least every 2 hours nursing, and now he totally sleeps through the night 95% of the time! I'm 7 months pregnant and really need my sleep, and am thrilled it worked so well. It was hard but not as hard as I thought it would be, I think we were both ready. He still sleeps with us and on the occasion that he does wake up and want to nurse, I give him the "it's dark outside, daddy's sleeping, mommy's sleeping, kitty's sleeping, you're sleeping, boos are sleeping" routine and it seems to make sense to him. I do my share of singing hush little baby but I don't mind! He still nurses to sleep initally but even that seems to be changing, he nurses and sometimes doesn't fall right asleep, then I sing to him and that does it. Hang in there- it is worth it!