[joy2grow]

DD is 31mo and has co-slept with us since birth. I've become quite irritated with nursing (and also want to become pregnant soon) and I'm thinking it's time to stop. We have a very small house and no other beds - also DD has always nursed to sleep. If it was necessary to get another bed we could make it work of course. It just seems doubly traumatic to loose milkies and the family bed at the same time.

 

[sammyloo]

I successfully night-weaned my 2.5yr old and still co-sleep - I think it made it easier on all of us - we were still all together, just one thing was changing. I have plans to drop the falling asleep nursing in a couple weeks (working on my nerve and trying to get him to agree although he absolutely is against the idea). I'll let you know if it works! I would like to move him into his own bed in our room or something (2nd baby comes in Sept.), but I don't want to push it.

 

[Qbear'smama]

I successfully weaned by just-turned-three DD (for the same reasons you mention) and still co-sleep. It was a very long process, over a period of months. I started by stopping any nursing during the night (that took time in itself...) then I started limiting the time DD could nurse in the morning and at night before bed. The sessions got shorter and shorter until it was just moments on the breast in the morning and before bed. THen I had to go away for four days and when I returned, I just tried to redirect her morning and night (getting out of bed, offering milk, having her father bring her into the living room, whatever I could think of to redirect her in a positive way). I agree that giving up nursing and sleeping together all at once would be quite a blow for the little one. If you have the patience to make it a process rather than going cold turkey, it can be done with a minimum of stress. It happened for us over a period of months. SHe still thinks about it and mentions nursing sometimes, esp in the morning, and has tried to latch on at times, but I just try to replace the nursing with cuddling and reinforcing what a big girl she is and she's been fine. Good luck!

 

[The4OfUs]

I nightweaned DD at around 18/19 months, and still sleep with her to this day (she'll be 3 in June). It's totally possible. It might not be without some protest on her part, but it's possible.

 

[Evergreen]

It worked for us, but once DD weaned she was wanted to be sleeping in her own room. We still have an open bed policy but she is happy where she is and has been for about three years. DD2 is a whole 'nother animal-

 

[NYMOM07]

yes! i did at 20 months- and he sleeps through the night now!

 

[clutterbug]

We night weaned at age two when i got pregnant with DS2. We had already been working a little bit (like, a night or two a week, if DS1 was really tired and open to it) at trying to get him to go to sleep with DH lying next to him in bed, so when I got pregnant we just continued to work on that and eventually started to tell him that the milky was going to sleep and would wake up in the morning. We had a few nights where eventually I caved and let him nurse for just afew seconds, then a few nights where we stopped letting him nurse at all and DH had to settle him back to sleep by cuddling him or carrying him around and singing, giving him a sippy cup of water, that kind of thing...but he got used to the idea pretty quickly. That was almost 2 years ago and he is still cosleeping.

 

[BoringTales]

You'll have a few long nights, but its definitely possible to wean and cosleep. I did it with youngest when he was 16 months old. I had the stomach flu, and am pregnant, and my supply was gone. I was done. It only took a night for us.

 

[joy2grow]

Thanks so much for the encouragement and sharing your stories. I did figure it would take several months to do this as compassionately as possible. Ironically, the day after posting my question both DD and I got sick and she's needed to nurse 5x as much! Just when I thought I couldn't take anymore - lol!

 

[mamazee]

I nightweaned and kept co-sleeping through it and after it, and it was really easy. She stopped nursing on her own several months after that, and we coslept through and after that as well.

 

[proudmomof4]

My youngest child started regularly sleeping through the night (in the sense of ca. 8h - 10 h) when he was around 18 months but he didn't completely wean until nearly 4 years (nursing before bedtime was the last to go). He still co-slept with us pretty regularly until January.
Then we moved, and now he is sharing a room with one of his brothers which seems to be enough "co-sleeping"!

 

[angelamariebee]

I nightweaned DD within a couple weeks when she had just turned 2 I think. I used Dr. Jay Gordon's nightweaning plan. Then I weaned her completely around 30mo and we still coslept. Now she'll be 3 in July and she's been in her bed for about a month (with true success within the last couple weeks). It's possible!

 

[orangefoot]

We did with some protest at around 2 yo. Dd was not always happy to be put off feeding when she woke in the night and I did wear a vest at night for a good while to stop her latching on without me noticing but it did help that she could snuggle up to dh when she felt I had spurned her.

We still sleep with her bed right jammed up next to ours and most nights she will stay on 'her' side.

 

[prufrocks_lady]

When I became pregnant, I didn't intend to wean totally unless my daughter was ready but I did want to night-wean. She was probably 26 or 27 months at the time and was very much used to nursing to sleep. I started letting her nurse but unlatching her before she was entirely asleep....of course, she didn't like that at first. I would sing to her and cuddle her to sleep and later I started making up bedtime stories. As she became used to the new routine, we phased out the nursing until she wasn't nursing at all-- we just used singing, cuddling, and stories. It was almost like a dance-- I would encourage her then wait for her response then we'd go a little further.

That said, I'm pregnant, so my milk was changing and that may have played a role in her willingness to stop. It wasn't long after nightweaning that she weaned herself totally, without any encouragement from me. So I would say that you can try slowly changing the routine but if it's causing prolonged stress and making you and your child miserable, the timing isn't right yet. Every baby learns to fall asleep without nursing at some point

I wrote a little bit about our experiences on my blog-- http://domesticdissident.blogspot.co...ning-path.html

Maybe it will encourage you a little. Good luck!

prufrocks_lady

 

[Carita]

I've heard good things about Dr Jay Gordon's night weaning plan.

 

[joy2grow]

I've yet to read Dr Jay Gordon's ideas, but they do come up a lot here so I'm curious. Thanks for sharing the blog post prufrocks_lady, I did enjoy reading your story. I just found out this morning that I am already pregnant ~4wks along!

: I'm thinking no wonder I got such hibijibies when DD was nursing, I was flooded with pregnancy hormones. So now I have even more motivation to figure out which strategies to try and set a time table to accomplish the transition.