co-sleeping is getting challenging

APendola

I co-sleep and breastfeed my 16 month old.  I am away at work during the day, so I nurse before and after work and before bedtime.  Lately she wants to nurse all night long.  She won’t fall back asleep unless I give her milk.  She also likes to pinch the boob she is not nursing on and kick me all night.  So I’m not getting much sleep.  She has some molars break through the gums in the last few weeks, so maybe she is feeling uncomfortable and looking for comfort.  If I stop her from pinching/kicking me, she ends up screaming bloody murder.

It’s getting pretty frustrating for me.  I have to be up at 5:45 each morning to get ready for work and I'm not getting enough sleep.  I want her to sleep more independently and I don’t know how to do this using a more gentle approach. 

Emerald27

DS did a lot of annoying twiddling during the night when he was your DD's age. What worked well for us was for me to occupy his hands with something else while he nursed. A teething necklace like this

( https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B004XIAP9G/ref=mp_s_a_1_12?qid=1385746247&sr=8-12&pi=AC_SX110_SY165_QL70 )

can work, but might make it hard to sleep. We have a small stuffed fox that I keep between the pillows and sometimes stick in his twiddly hand.

Also, teaching her not to twiddle by just plain not allowing it (and preparing yourself for a few rough nights) is doable. She needs to have manners and respect appropriate boundaries for nursing, and mommy finds twiddling uncomfortable. You can hold her hand and explain that she cannot twiddle because it hurts mommy, and she might scream or refuse to nurse at first, but it's likely that she'll calm down and nurse without twiddling because ultimately, she wants to nurse and craves the comfort.

Good luck! It's so hard to establish and maintain boundaries with kids in nursing because we want so lovingly to share ourselves with them in that way. Restricting what they do when they nurse is tough.