Gentle Night Weaning

kateraid

Does anybody have any tips on how to gently night wean an 18 month old? He only wakes once a night. I am not in a rush to wean him but lately it seems he has a much harder time going back to sleep once he's nursed and I am thinking if he could sleep straight through it would be better for him.

vvvvvfee

obligatory jay gordon night weaning link.

you can certainly reduce the length of the session-- from 10 minutes, to 7 minutes, to 5 minutes, etc., until it's so short he might not wake up for it at all. but you could also start telling him that it's time to rest and he can nurse in the morning, and he is getting to be old enough where he can start to understand that a little. if you want to go about it more systematically, or if your LO is dead-set on nursing, try the jay gordon method above.

Emerald27

I've had great success with DS with shortening the length of his nursing. Pregnancy has made night nursing very painful, so we're night weaning to save my sanity (DS is 2.5).

I basically just let him latch and suck until I can't take it anymore and then I unlatch him and say "ok, time to go to sleep." 9 times out of 10 that works, but when it doesn't I offer the other side and repeat. If he STILL wants to nurse, I offer a sippy of water.

The result of doing this at night is that he now doesn't need to nurse to go to sleep. He nurses a bit and then rolls over and goes to sleep on his own. He also has been waking less to nurse, and sometimes wakes and just rolls over without even asking (like it's not worth it if he's just going to latch for a second or 2).

You can also see if SO could comfort him first, to try to help him back to sleep, and only nurse him if he becomes inconsolable. In a week or so, he'll probably become fine with letting SO comfort him back to bed, and then will wake less.

kateraid

Thanks guys. The Jay Gordon might not work as he is usually awake when I put him down anyways and totally fine with that. Ill try reducing the time he gets gradually.

Emerald27

@kateraid‌ We also bought this book for DS. It's about how when the sun goes down, mommy, daddy, baby, and the "nursies" all go to sleep (we call them "bees", so I just change the word when I read it), and in the morning, everyone wakes up...including the nursies! It talks about what we'll do if baby wakes during the night, since the nursies will be sleeping. Mama will hold and kiss and snuggle baby, but the nursies are asleep until the sun rises.

I've been telling DS that the bees are asleep after he nurses for a bit, and I assure him that if he goes to sleep too, they'll wake up when he does. I don't make it as extreme as "when the sun rises," but I do tell him that they can't wake up until he goes to sleep and wakes. We snuggle a lot and I have water for him too.

Here's the book on amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0615756425?pc_redir=1397476220&robot_redir=1