How to count hours of sleep with night nursing

carla5995

Our little guy is going to be one in July, and I have been soooo gradually working on getting him into the crib a bit more awake and with just sitting and reading so that he doesn't need nursing (when he's not hungry) to fall back to sleep. When everything is good at bedtime, he usually wakes up only once during the night and then just a little too early for the day, and falls back asleep quickly both times with a short nursing session where he's actually hungry, resulting in what seems like quality sleep and a good number of hours overall. If things don't go well, he wakes up every hour for half the night or more, and at that point wants to nurse back to sleep. So on a "bad" night, when he wants to actually have milk for half an hour and just lay there latched for another half an hour, but with his eyes closed and totally relaxed, every other hour, is that...sleeping? Or is he missing out on multiple hours of sleep because nursing time isn't sleeping? 

angetralala

I think you can tell if they're asleep when they're eating. Until 17 months old, my daughter still nursed every 2-3 hours all night, and was definitely unconscious as soon as she latched. Just try to unlatch him sooner if you're worried he's not actually asleep, maybe.