Nightweaning advice needed

[PinkSunfish]

We are thinking about nightweaning DD. She is 17.5 months old and I am 10 weeks pregnant with our second child.

DD has never been a "good sleeper" and she has never slept through the night. Just before I got pregnant her sleep had improved to the point that she was only up once in the night after 11.30pm which was bliss as far as I was concerned. However my pregnancy coincided with her four canine teeth coming through at once (she is a hard teether) and her sleep has been just awful since then, even though the teeth are now finished coming through.

On a good night she is up every three hours, on a bad night it is every hour or hour and a half. Sometimes it can take an hour to get her back down to sleep. She is very insistant on being fed back to sleep and will not tolerate me lying her back down and trying to soothe her with back rubs etc or just holding her and rocking her.

I am a very optimistic person and have always hoped that DD's sleep will naturally improve as she gets older. I am usually very patient with DD and cope with the nights okay but recently I have been finding it more and more frustrating and harder to cope at night. I suspect this is due to the extra demands made on me by the pregnancy.

DH thinks that we should nightwean and I can definately see some advantages to that; especially because I will need to give her some practice sleeping when Mummy and Daddy aren't available in preparation for labour and a potential several nights in the hospital for me (I had an emergency C-section last time and although I want a VBAC, have to be prepared for worst case scenario). I also worry about having to cope with two children waking through the night.

However, I am very apprehensive about nightweaning. I know that DD will be very angry and upset to be refused BF and she does not react well to DH going in to her at night (even though during the day he's her favourite ;)). I am absolutely against CIO and worry that DH trying to comfort her to sleep will be like a "softer" version (in that although he will be comforting her, she will be screaming for me).

She is a very happy, cheerful, secure, outgoing, independent soul and I worry that forced nightweaning will be very traumatic and change her in a negative way. Especially since she is a very strong willed girl and I don't expect the transition to be easy for anyone.

This is very rambly but I think what I am asking for is any advice that you can give. Ways that we can minimise the stress for DD (and ourselves) or anything else which might help.

All my RL friends bar one have done CIO in some form and none have children as strong willed as my DD.

Any advice, experiences, opinions, criticism welcome.

[dnr3301]

HI!!

I'm sorry, I have really very little advice, but I wanted to pop in and say congrats on your pregnancy! I remember you from when we were on the March boards together, wow it seems like I know a lot of people with kids this age who are preggers again.

Anyway, my dd quit wanting to nurse as much when I was about 5 months along, she was older though (just turned three when ds was born, so about 2 1/2 when she quit nursing). I know I am having a time with sleeping with ds right now, same age as your dd. I really don't think nightweaning would help us, but I'm not pregnant,s o that adds a extra stressor. Good luck with it all.

[nurtureyourbabies]

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

This is a great article on Night time weaning by Dr Jay Gordon. Good Luck

[lara1828]

Sunfish,

I am in a nearly identical situation (10 wks pg, frequent waking 18 mo old). I've been telling ds "no" or "all done" occasionally when he asks to nurse during the day (especially if I think he's just bored) to get him used to the idea that I might say no sometimes. This actually does seem to have helped a couple nights when I really had enough nursing and needed to stop. He protested, but eventually fell asleep laying across my chest.

DH and I have been talking about it and I think we are just going to have to bite the bullet and nightwean (I'll probably try Jay Gordon's approach). Unfortunately, it's a catch-22. I'm so tired from pg and nightwaking that I dont' feel I have the energy to be up more for a couple weeks trying to nightwean. DH gets up with him every morning now, but will be less willing to do that if we are waking him up in the night. arghh!

My question for others is do I really need to quit all night? It would be OK sleepwise for me to nurse him once in the night, but I'm afraid that would just be an inconsistency from his perspective.

[Spencersmom]

I am in the process of nightweaning my 16mo old, again. I tried this twice before, and like Dr. Gordon said, it just didn't feel right at the time so I gave up. The reason I knew it wasn't the right time for US was that he cried too long and too intensely and then was not his normal self the next day. Both times I only tried for the one night. This time, on the advice of my pediatrician (which was very similar to Dr. Gordon's) I have tried again. I just couldn't handle waking every 1 1/2 hours all night long. He also needed to be nursed back to sleep half way through his nap!! So, I was not happy with the nursing relationship although I am sure he would have continued on like that for a long time :) .

Here is what I did. I hope it helps. We are cosleeping. I have been nursing him in bed, on demand, throughout the night and when he wakes in the morning. Since starting the nightweaning, I have stopped nursing him in bed. I still get up to nurse him once in the night (around 1:30 or 2am) but we go to the couch w/the boppy and then return to bed. I just couldn't take away all the night nursing at once. I still feel like he needs to nurse in the night because he nurses both breasts, fully. Also, I feel that it is confusing for him to be able to nurse in the bed sometimes but not other times. I figured no nursing in bed, ever and then it is very clear cut and he is not getting mixed messages.

Another part of this has been to change his routine at night. It used to be that I would nurse him to sleep, usually on the couch and not put him down until he was asleep. The first 4 nights, I nursed him before bath, pjs and books. Then I rocked him to sleep. He did protest a bit but not much because there was lots of cuddles, singing and he had been rocked to sleep before. Then, when he woke in the night I would lay him back down, rub his back and tell him it was okay and time for night night. He protested more during the night, but again not as much as the other times I have tried this before. When he woke somewhere around 1:30 or 2, I got out of bed and nursed him until he was asleep, or almost asleep and then back to bed. He wanted to nurse as soon as he woke in the morning, but we went out to the couch.
All 4 nights he has protested some but he does a half-hearted, whiny kind of cry, not the all out scream from before. After about 3-5 mins of that and tossing around a bit, he has gone back to sleep. Last night, night 4, he slept from 8:00 to 1:30!!!! That is a major improvement in my book .

Now to get him to fall asleep in bed, instead of while rocking. This is night 5 and I rocked him until he was sleepy but not sleeping. I brought him into bed and laid him down. I was shocked that he rolled right over on his belly and settled right in. I thought for sure he would sit up and think it was time to play or something. He tossed and turned a bit but did eventually fall asleep with me just lying next to him. I can't believe it. This is the ultimate goal, I guess, to be able to put him down while he is still awake so that when he wakes in the night, he is comfortable enough to fall back to sleep.

My personal goal is to get a block of uninterrupted sleep. I have no problem with rocking him for as long as it takes to get him sleepy and ready to be put down. I have no problem nursing him whenever he wants during the day. And, I will nurse him once in the night for as long as that is working for both of us. I felt guilty at first but, I need sleep too in order to run, literally run, after him all day long.

Like you, I spent a long time putting up with no sleep and telling myself he would grow out of it, etc. I was torn because I really wanted to do what was right for ds but still really felt like I needed to get some quality sleep. I would say, do what feels right in your heart. If you try it and it doesn't feel right, wait and try again later. When the time is right, it will feel right.

[moonmama22]

I'm really glad there are people who understand the dilemma of nightweaning and all its ups and downs. Even my mother, who was very supportive of BF (did so herself), has started commenting on him waking and nursing at night. Not that I care what anyone else thinks, but dp and I have become walking zombies due to our interrupted nights. We do cosleep, and it is so much easier for all of us if as soon as ds wakes, I nurse him back to sleep before he gets too worked up. I've tried all the different "methods" (except CIO, obviously) but gave up, mostly out of laziness and the feeling that it wasn't the right time. Ds had been sleeping better - down around 9:00 and sleeping in crib, then up at 2:00 or so and in bed with us from then until he woke around 8:00. I'm sure he woke sometimes in the early a.m., but nursed for such a short time I don't remember it in the morning. Now, at 15mos. he wakes every two or three hours again, and wants to nurse for half an hour or more, and he is so big and fidgity, I cannot sleep through nursing anymore.
Most of my friends/acquaintances, save for two, have sleep "trained" their dc, and so don't understand why we can't just wean him without any issues.

Sorry this was long winded :blah , it's just nice to have some company...
I had tried Dr. Gordon's (sp?) advice before, but will reread it and see how it goes...
Thanks for the support! :D

[merpk]

This may not be too helpful, but will wade in anyway ...


With my first, when we were pregnant with our second, we tried to nightwean. He was maybe 17, 18 mos. Big mistake. He was miserable, so were we. All sorts of issues.

Okay. So baby born, tandem nursing, very nice.

He eventually weaned ... and I became pregnant with our third. This time we did not even consider weaning the second, just nursed right along. Baby came, tandem nursing ... very nice.




We found that we were making nightweaning into an issue when there was no issue necessary. Nursing was going along, and when the baby came, well, everyone managed to sleep just fine. And the same happened when the next baby came.




Maybe if you don't worry about it, it won't be a problem.




:)



:bolt

[PinkSunfish]

Thanks everyone for your great advice and your experiences.

Luckily I haven't had to forcibly nightwean DD. A combination of her eating suddenly massively improving (a different story - solution, metal cutlery) and me instituting a new policy of feeding her to almost asleep (rather than fully asleep) has resulted in a rapdi improvement in her sleep over the last few days. Last night she slept for 8 hours together!

Fingers crossed that it lasts.

[IncaMama]

i haven't read any responses so forgive me if i'm repeating...but when i first saw your title, i thought snarkily in my head "get yourself pregnant and it'll take care of itself"...and then i saw that you WERE pregnant! LOL now, of course, i wasn't being serious anyway...because it's different for everybody...but my DS (2.5yo) just recently nightweaned himself bc there was no more milk coming out of my boobs!! LOL he was VERY upset about it for a while (about 5 days) but i appeased him with water and now he sleeps through. he still "dry nurses" a lot during the day, and if he does wake up for other reasons at night he likes to nurse back to sleep but he doesn't wake just to nurse anymore. maybe the same will happen to you!

anyway, good luck!!