[jessisaurusRARR]

I am blessed with what is considered a "high needs baby" well, I guess now, toddler, but I digress.

He has never, not once, slept through the night, and the past 5 months has been a rollercoaster of good nights (waking 3-4x to nurse) and bad (I usually lose count after 15 or so).

I actually don't mind the night nursing as much as I am frustrated that he does not know how to put himself to sleep and always requires parental assistance whether it be rocking, patting, or nursing.

I guess what I am looking for is the light at the end of the tunnel. Mamas of high needs sleepers, please reassure me that there is indeed a dawn at the end of this lonnnnng night (pun intended

) Any sage advice and words of wisdom are greatly appreciated as well.

 

[Gator-mom]

Oh man...I had one that around 12 months he wouldn't sleep UNLESS he was nursing! When I would try to get him off, he would wake up screaming and hitting me and was impossible to calm down unless he got his boob back! I was waking up exhausted from half sleeping all night and sore on my nipples and tweaked back from laying weird all night. It was awful! I ended up night weaning him by..forgot the guys name..but he's mentioned here on MDC a lot..hopefully someone will read this and know what I am talking about. It was a rough couple of weeks trying to get through the transition but it was so worth it. He is two now, and still having issues waking occassionally and takes forever to go to sleep at night now..but it is still much improved from those dark days before.

Good luck mama..I'm still waiting for those perfect sleeping nights myself..but I must say a year later from those hard times, at least its not as bad as it WAS.

 

[chipper26]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gator-mom Oh man...I had one that around 12 months he wouldn't sleep UNLESS he was nursing! When I would try to get him off, he would wake up screaming and hitting me and was impossible to calm down unless he got his boob back! I was waking up exhausted from half sleeping all night and sore on my nipples and tweaked back from laying weird all night. It was awful! I ended up night weaning him by..forgot the guys name..but he's mentioned here on MDC a lot..hopefully someone will read this and know what I am talking about. It was a rough couple of weeks trying to get through the transition but it was so worth it. He is two now, and still having issues waking occassionally and takes forever to go to sleep at night now..but it is still much improved from those dark days before. Good luck mama..I'm still waiting for those perfect sleeping nights myself..but I must say a year later from those hard times, at least its not as bad as it WAS.

The guy's name is Jay Gordon. Good luck! My dd is a super high needs sleeper, too, but I'm not going to even think about night weaning until at least a year.

 

[jessisaurusRARR]

DS Turned a year March 30th and I hadn't even started to approach night weaning, although a strange coincidence because I got really sick and dehydrated my milk supply dropped so for the past few nights DS has nursed maybe twice? But he is also running a fever today (different sickness than mine, thank goodness) so that could be some of his reluctance to nurse as well.

We;re about to move into a new apartment and I can't bring myself to really try and start new routines until we are settled in our permanent home, ya know?

 

[KimPM]

My high-needs DS always required a lot of assistance. Sometimes for hours. And he never slept more than 2 hours at a time...always woke to nurse. He had to nurse down. Also, he never slept total time anywhere near the averages for his age...ever. And he still doesn't. But....

Somewhere around 27-28 months it started getting easier. (We had severe feeding issues.) He finally started eating enough solid food volume so that he started slacking off his round-the-clock nursing at that time. I also encouraged less night nursing by offering him a sip of water first. He started sleeping through the night, and nursing to sleep only. Around then I started nursing him almost but not quite down to sleep (finally was able to do that - yeah!) Then around 34 months he stopped doing even that because he couldn't suck due to having a cold. He started being able to just go down to sleep with me, or after just a little bit of bouncing with daddy. Really, he still requires something from us...reading before bed, or when he's really fighting it some bouncing or rocking with daddy. But it's not nearly the chore it used to be. And he still sleeps with me. I don't think he'd be able to sleep by himself right now, it's just his anxious and gotta-be-near-mama personality. But I'm okay with that, because he finally sleeps all night!!

So there's hope!