The Dr. Jay Gordon method of night weaning - Page 2

[LoriB]

Dotcommama-
DD sleeps A LOT better now that she's night weaned. Actually, she's almost totally weaned, and DH gets mad if I bf her before bed. If I do, she actually wakes up a lot during the night. He thinks I should just stop cold turkey now that she's almost weaned. But I can't refuse her if she asks for it (which is almost never now) or really seems to "need" it. It's a very emotional time for me. DD is doing great though. She sleeps like a LOG most nights. Right now she is napping and I heard her on the baby monitor. I just had to go in there to rub her back to get her back to sleep. I used to always have to bf to get her to fall back to sleep during a nap. (Naps are another story -- that can be a whole other thread I'm sure.) The other thing I wanted to mention was that when I night weaned her, I had trouble falling back alseep too. I felt so guilty. Plus there's probably a prolactin withdrawl, the bf hormone that helps you relax. You have to get used to the new arrangement as well.

[dotcommama]

ok my first offical night of no night time nursing

Ok well to continue my saga . . .

Last night ds woke up only two times and didn't even cry when I told him he couldn't nurse. (That's the good news).

The unfortunate thing is he had a really difficult time getting back to sleep. The first time it took over an hour and a half for him to fall back to sleep. He was wiggling and trying to get off the bed. He tried to lick my boobs through my shirt - which actually made me laugh hysterically. Of cousre after that we spent 20 minutes trying to get the fuzz from my pj's out of his mouth Anyway, he finally did manage to cuddle with me and fall asleep.

I think he's just learning how to fall asleep without a breast in his mouth which is basically the way he's fallen asleep since an hour after his birth until now. So I'm still hopeful. I'm glad he wasn't crying or upset, because I don't know that I would have been able to not give in. I'm just hoping it will go even better tonight. Wish me luck!

[lisamarie]

Best of Luck to you tonight dotcomama!

Warmly~

Lisa

[Brigitte&Eitan]

Dotcommama, How is it going with the nightweaning? Keep us posted !

[smiley]

I'm jealous of how well nightweaning is going for all of you.
We started Friday night (ds is 23months), and fri and sat were rough but okay. However, on Sunday ds refused to nurse at all, he just kept saying, "no suck". All of this led to massive engorgement, a breast infection, and now the flu. Now that I'm feeling my absolute lowest, ds suddendly wants to nurse again and all the time!
sorry about my griping, just looking for support

[dotcommama]

(((smiley))) I'm sorry it isn't go very well for you. Hang in there. Maybe your son just isn't ready yet. Give him a little while then try again in a few weeks or months if you can wait.

I am lucky, my ds is very calm by nature so this is going smoothly. I remember night weaning my first and it was a nightmare. When I would refuse to nurse he would scream for over an hour, fists clenched, completely angry. The only thing I could do was get out of bed and dance and sing to him. I had to do this every hour the first night and almost every hour the second. That's why I was so glad to read of a better method - because mine way kind of sucked!

Thanks for thinking of me Brigitte - it's going well. Ds is still waking 2-3 times a night, but last night he didn't even ask for milk he just hugged me and snuggled and fell right back to sleep.

Though I wasn't doing this to get him to sleep through the night I have to admit I'm kind of hoping he might, but either way I'm still getting more sleep now that he isn't glued to my boob most of the night and I'm just going to cross my fingers that he's teeth will not get any worse now that we've stopped night nursing. We'll see at his next dentist visit in 6 weeks.

So Brigitte are you going to give it a whirl?

LMK

[Brigitte&Eitan]

Hey There Sisters! So sorry to hear about your difficuties, Smiley. I really empathize with the mastitis, I've had it myself 3 times . Hang in there, though, it's bound to get better!
Dotcommama, yes, I am going to do the nightweaning, but not until my family is able to move out of my mother's house. We are waiting for our new house to get finnished, then we'll move in, give DS a week or two to get used to his new surroundings, and then.....: NO MORE BOOBY AT NIGHT!!!!!! I can only hope and pray that it goes as well for us as it is for you, Dotcommama; my little guy is very high needs/demanding
Keep us posted, nightweaning supermommies!

[Brigitte&Eitan]

Hey There Sisters! So sorry to hear about your difficuties, Smiley. I really empathize with the mastitis, I've had it myself 3 times . Hang in there, though, it's bound to get better!
Dotcommama, yes, I am going to do the nightweaning, but not until my family is able to move out of my mother's house. We are waiting for our new house to get finnished, then we'll move in, give DS a week or two to get used to his new surroundings, and then.....: NO MORE BOOBY AT NIGHT!!!!!! I can only hope and pray that it goes as well for us as it is for you, Dotcommama; my little guy is very high needs/demanding
Keep us posted, nightweaning supermommies!

Peace,
Brigitte

[milesmom]

dr jay gordon

Dr. Jay is our son's pediatrician and was mine as a teen. Just want to be clear that he is not a proponent of night weaning unless the parents feel totally comfortable and compelled to do it. This has been made clear to us and is clearly stated at his website. This is not to say there is anything wrong with it. My two year old son shows no sign of slowing down on the nursing and I don't plan on intervening unless I get pregnant or just can't take it physically. The truly remarkable thing is that just when I think I've had it everything changes. This has occured with most issues. Every couple of weeks things change dramatically. Not that he doesn't wake up, but the duration between wakings and the quality of sleep improves. The point- If you're not ready to deal with a totally awake and miserable kid for a period of time don't bother. Dr. Jay doesn't share his method to promote night-weaning but to those who've just had it. I'm torn cause sometimes I think I have had it and that's precisely the times I'm not going to have the energy to endure truly sleepless nights and so many tears! I don't think I could sleep through even if my husband did the consoling. So, does anyone know how you refuse without all hell breaking loose. The only time I tried it our son decided 3am was a good time to get up and start the day! If not I prefer to have the peace and the precious moments even through the night-wakings.

[zzmommy]

Hi milesmom,
I can totally relate to what you said about whenever you think you've had enough, things change and get better. I've been stressing about thinking about whether it's time to nightwean DS, because he is 25 months and still wakes every few hours at night and won't go to sleep or back to sleep without nursing. I kind of just want it to happen naturally without me having to do anything or refuse to let him nurse, but I also want to get pregnant soon and I still haven't gotten my period, and I'm afraid I won't ovulate if he keeps nursing all night long.

I guess I don't feel resolved enough to put up with all hell breaking loose yet, as you say, because I don't feel like I have enough sleep banked up in reserves to deal with sleepness crying nights. I'm afraid it will be really hard because the few times I have tried to get him back to sleep without nursing, he says "Mommy I need the milketers, I want booby, BOOBY,BOOOOOBY!!!" and he cries and gets really upset.

I think I will continue to try here and there and see if he seems okay with trying to go back to sleep without the boob, and if not I'll keep nursing him and enjoying the late night cuddly closeness which I'm sure I'll miss when he's 12 and doesn't want to have anything to do with me!
Last night he actually slept from 10:30 till 4:30, so maybe things are getting better! I also kind of feel like if he's not ready to give up the boob at night, he's not ready to have a younger sibling, so maybe it's for the best, who knows.

More power to you brave mommies forging ahead with nightweaning! I love the story about licking the pajamas and trying to get the fuzz out of the mouth.

[milesmom]

zzmommy

Strange turn of events. i took my son to the dentist today for the first time and he said his teeth are decaying (one tooth is chipped) and the night nursing is making it much worse....Now I may be compelled to stop at night. I'm not sure how I'm going to handle it. I guess I'll have to look for info regarding this new issue.

P.s. I got my period at 14 months and I was exclusively nursing a lot and I am very lean. the point. You will get your period when your body is ready and probably very soon. Just be sure to get enough food.

[lunarmomma]

Just to add another experience, I was dreading night weaning DS and it really was not as bad as I thought it would be. We prepared for it ahead of time, and when it happened, that he woke and I said no we did have a crying fit, but we were right there with him. The worse it ever got was 1/2 hour of crying. Within a few nights he was getting used to the idea. And then the fussing was briefer each night. We transitioned to singing our goodnight song and/or his little music player which helps to calm him. Within a week it was much easier.
And now, a bit more than two weeks later, he is sleeping a 7 hour stretch without waking. Amazing!! I would never have thought it possible.
I am convinced that it is the nursing that keeps them waking up so often all night long.
If you want to read some not so traumatic success stories about night weaning, read the 'Help Weaning Conflict' by menanny. I will bump it up so you can check it out.
Good luck to you all. it can be done.
And milesmom, welcome to the boards!!!! Glad to see you here finally

[milesmom]

Lunarmom

I knew it was you when I read the part about the music player! Congratulations on joining the sleeping people!!!!

What do you think about the tooth decay? I really don't want to be forced to night-wean before we're really ready.

Please post and let's talk too. This alternative community is such a small world (a little too small but we're getting there).

[dotcommama]

milesmom - i can relate to the tooth decay, it's why I night weaned. Did you dentist tell you not to nurse to sleep also? Mine did, but I just don't think he's ready to give that up yet - though night weaning went very smoothly for us. But he almost always nurses to sleep and always has. He has a checkup at the end of the month and I'm hoping just the night weaning will have made a difference in slowing the tooth decay. I guess we'll see.

Also - for those who are a little afraid of night weaning Dr. Jay's method I think really prevents it from being traumatic b/c the first few days you are nursing, but just for a shorter time and your child is starting to learn to go back to sleep without the boob in his mouth, yet your not completely refusing him. I think this made a huge difference. When I night weaned my first ds I just outright refused to nurse from the start of night weaning and he cried hard and woke a lot the first few nights. With my second ds we used Dr. Jay's method and when we got to the point of refusing all together he only cried a few minutes - it wasn't what I would consider traumatic at all.

So if you are thinking of night weaning you may want to see how your child responds to being nursed for a minute or two and then latched off and hugged, cuddled or sung to sleep - instead of seeing how they react when you totally refuse them. They may be more cooperative than you'd imagine.

Best of luck!
LMK

[zzmommy]

milesmom - Sorry to hear about the tooth decay. I've been worried about that also, but haven't been to the dentist yet. The pediatrician said his teeth look okay, but he has a chipped tooth too ( has had it since summer). She told me that if he does nurse at night, have a damp cloth close by and just wipe off his teeth with it after he nurses. I tried it when ds was younger, but it always woke him up again, but maybe it could help your ds if he sleeps more soundly.

About the period, I'm also really lean and have trouble keeping my weight at 100 or above since having given birth, so I wonder if that's part of it too. It's hard to find time to eat when chasing a very active toddler, and I think nursing really must use up a lot of calories because I'm always hungry.

Dotcommama - Thanks for your words of encouragement on nightweaning not being too traumatic. I keep trying to find Dr. Jay Gordon's webpage but I can't get to it as www.drjaygordon.com, and I even tried a search on the web to find his name, no luck. Any tips? But the trying to nurse for a short time for the first few nights sounds a lot more do-able for me than refusing outright! I think I might try it this weekend if I feel brave.

Thanks for everyone's honesty and support, it's so great to read what everyone's going through and not feel so alone when the vast majority of the people I know and what the media shows is so different from the way I feel and choose to raise my son.
zzmommy

[dotcommama]

zzmommy - Here is the link to the article on night weaning. (hope the link works)

http://www.drjaygordon.com/pediatricks/sleep.htm

edited to add - I tested the link and it works for me - if it doesn't work i just did a yahoo search for dr. jay gordon and his web site comes up. then search for night weaning on his site - it's the first article that appears.

LMK

[lisamarie]

Just bumping this for another mommy!

Warmly~

Lisa

[lisamarie]

Just bumping again

Warmly~

Lisa

[lisamarie]

Bumping for Kiddoson.

[bluedotsmom]

dotcommomma and others: I've never used any "method" for nightweaning (I'd hate to 'fail'.) The Baby Book is always my resource for ideas and then trial and error. One thing that made it a little easier for me with dd2, is that when I had to make a couple of business trips, she did just fine with DH!!! So she could sleep without momma's 'nursery'! This helped me relax and know that we could do it.

With dd1, when she would go from 9pm - 4am without nursing, that was nightweaning for me. That's 7 hours without mommy milk, she gave up the 4am nursing around 11 months. btw, dd1 did all this on her own.

dd2 was a little different (I wohm.) She was a reverse scheduler and a very avid night nurser. When she was 18 months old, I got a promotion, we had to move and I was working 12 hour days. I couldn't keep up with the all night nursing. Since she was fairly verbal, I started telling her that "we're not going to nurse in the bedroom anymore" I'd nurse her all she wants in the living room before bed, but not nursing to sleep or during the night. It took a couple of weeks, but she understood it. DH would sleep next to her when he came to bed. She fussed a little & some nights she asked to sleep on my chest, which was fine. Also, up to that point I slept without a shirt on to make night-nursing easier, but I started sleeping in a t-shirt. All in all, it took a couple of months to get it completely done. We still cosleep too.

Don't know if this is helpful, but get as many ideas as you can and follow your heart!! I couldn't take time to read all the posts, but there are a lot of wonderful mommas here with some wonderful advice!

hugs