That magical time when...re: boobs and/or sleep

mylo

I love those posts that say..."I don't know what happened...he just started STTN or didn't want to nurse." 

Two questions for those moms:

1.  At what age did your DC "magically" start sleeping better?

2.  At what age did your DC self-wean?

I have been dealing with 8-11 wake ups per night since DS was 3.5 months old...he just turned a year.  I have to nurse him down every stinken' time.  His naps are the same.  

ThePinkHound

We did bedsharing with DD, and I nursed her to sleep every.single.time she woke up. It finally culminated with me in the psych ward when she turned 9 months. The night I was admitted, DH put DD in the crib, and that was it. He'd let her do a bit of crying, and then give her a bottle if she was having a hard time. It was one of the best things that happened for us, well, not me going off the deep end, but YKWIM.

aglenn

Oh, I wish someone could tell me when the magic age would be for my DD on either of those!  She seems to be resistant to any intervention and will just do things on her own timeline, period.  Everything from taking a bottle when I went back to work to sleeping in her crib at night has been a long ordeal of me reading 8 million books and articles and trying every suggestion with no effect at all, only to have her decide one day that she's ready to do whatever it is, and that is that.  So, I expect sleep and weaning to be the same, but when...that is the big question.

(FWIW, my mother says I was exactly the same way; in fact she would argue that I still am).

anna7602

DD started STTN more or less consistently around 5 months with some hiccups due to teething and developmental milestones. I didn't do a single thing to encourage it, but I did nurse her to sleep until she was 18 months old. To this day, DD is still a champion sleeper once she is down, but it can sometimes be a pain to get her to sleep to begin with and she dropped her daytime nap over 6 months ago. (But if she does ever happen to doze off during the day, she will sleep for 2-3 hours solid.)

DD never self-weaned. I had to be super pro-active about weaning starting around 22 months and I was able to wean her completely at 25 months.

Lilrdmandy

DS started to not need nursing to sleep around 15months.  Before then he would not sleep at all no matter what unless I nursed him to sleep.  Around 15 months he would let me rock him to sleep, but moving him to his crib sometimes he'd wake up and I'd have to start over. I would have been fine with nursing him longer, but with mastitis, and a hint from him that he was about ready, we were done!

As soon as we stopped nursing he started eating better and then almost right away started STTN.

Lotte134

1) No magic about it at our house.  We nightweaned at 20 months.  I'm pretty sure if we hadn't DS would still be waking 2-5 times per night.

2) I doubt self-weaning will happen for us either.  If something doesn't change I'm planning to wean by 3 years old.

Maturity definitely helps, but I think it also helps to set reasonable limits and make sure to have a solid bedtime routine.  

jen5-03

Dd magically started sleeping better when i learned to bf without waking up! Or at least it felt like it! She did not sleep 8+ hours until after she was 2yo. However she stopped nursing to sleep at 9mo. She just didnt fall asleeep before she was done bfing and so i gave her to dh and he rocked her to sleep. Any other wakings i had to nurse her back down. I weaned her at 17mo she was no where near self weaning. I still bf ds to sleep and several times a night but i dont really wake up so i get decent sleep.