Sleeping through the night

mydreamworld1005

My 1 yr old still isn't sleeping through the night. She's actually never slept through the night, and I'm exhausted. I've gone back to work and she's been waking up 4/5 times through the night recently. She still comfort nurses through night. I've tried to quit night nursing cold turkey but she just screames to the point of hyperventilating. Idk what else to do

Mack2342

I used the book Sleep Easy Solution to help with getting my DS to sleep through the night.  My son was getting up every hour to snack, comfort nursing.   I had to do some homework that the book suggested to prepare but I was able to determine that my son actually was eating once at night and the rest was comfort so I was able to wean him from the comfort nursing.  We did this when my son was about 5 months.  At 7 months I stopped nursing basically cold turkey to try for a 2nd baby so we switched my son to one bottle at night.  Then I followed suggestions in the book to stop that one bottle around 11 months which included diluting his milk and reducing the amount I was giving until I basically wasn't giving him anything.  Took about a week to ween him from bottle at night and now sleeps through the night.  I like this book because it gives you suggestions for different age groups.  I hope you find a solution and get some sleep.  

oneblessedmess

It sounds like you may need to resort to some sleep training (and I don't necessarily mean cry it out, which we never did) there are several ways to sleep train without leaving her to cry. "The No-Cry Sleep Solution" is supposed to be a good one, as well as "Sleep Easy Solution" as mentioned above.

Where does she sleep, and how long is she nursing each time? When you put her to bed, do you nurse her to sleep? I would say try cutting back the nursing sessions by a minute or two each night, lay her down, and pat her back until she's asleep, rather than letting her fall asleep on the boob. The goal is that she learns to fall asleep without the breast, which is what it sounds like is happening- She doesn't know how to go back to sleep on her own, so every time she goes through a sleep cycle, she wakes up fully and needs you to help her start the process over again. Hopefully once you can cut out the night nursing, she'll have an easier time getting herself to sleep.

virginiaunicorn11

I was in your exact position. My son is now almost 19 months and this past month has started sleeping through the night more often than not. I do think some kids just take longer.

I enlisted my husband's help - he would go in after, say 2:00 am. It took a little longer and a little more crying, but it was easier for us to have him cry in our arms vs alone. 

We also started loading him up on a before bed snack and cow's milk before he would nurse. And I just refused to nurse more often than 3-4 hours after a while. 

Last, we started timing his crying and would go into his room after ~7 minutes. More often than not, he wouldn't go back to sleep, but he did a couple times and with my son, it helped to wear him out a little and help him understand I wasn't always going to come running.

Good luck, mama! For me, this has been the hardest part of parenthood BY FAR.

SDaniels19

I second the timing suggestion. We decided I wouldn't nurse him unless it had been a certain amount of time (to where I thought he was really hungry, not just wanting comfort), and would give him 5-7 minutes before going into the room. You don't realize how long that actually is when your baby is crying, but it really helped because he learned to soothe himself and eventually we didn't need to go in anymore. It was not fun to hear him cry, but we had gotten to the point where it was so hard to get him back to sleep he was crying all the time at night anyway while we tried to get him back down. There is much less crying now that he's figured out how to do it on his own.  Good luck, this is tough but hang in there!!