I need weaning tips for a comfort nurser!

SethandSara

Hi mamas! Please share any experience or ideas with me! My son is a major comfort nurser and can't fall asleep without nursing.  We resorted to co-sleeping last summer because I would be up 5-6 times a night with him to nurse him back to sleep.  He still wakes up in his sleep and roots, crying if he can't find my breast. Of course I give it to him and he falls back to sleep.  Most times I'm a pacifier, but sometimes he does actually eat.  He started really liking cow's milk a couple of weeks ago and it's time for him to be weaned and sleep in his own bed.  Any tips?  Basically, I need tips on how to wean a baby with these types of nursing habits, how to get him to fall asleep without nursing, and how to get him to fall back to sleep without needing to nurse (when he wakes up in the middle of his sleep). Any tips for getting him to sleep in his crib would be appreciated too. Please understand that we are against crying it out. This babe is so strong willed, he'd be crying for hours.  Seriously. TIA!

water-fairy

Ouch, that's hard!

I night weaned DS after his birthday. At night I would go hide in the guest room and let DH handle him. There was a lot of crying but I was not putting up with being his pacifier anymore. Eventually, he got the message. Once he stopped looking for the breast at night I went back to sleeping in my own bed with DH...

Let me say that DS has always been a terrible sleeper. He would be up at least twice a night. So we went to see a sleep specialist and started doing sleep training once he was weaned from the breast at night. The hardest part was making him give up the boob before bed. We would do a bedtime routine. Lots of cuddles. Some nursing which I would stop once he started dozing off. Of course, there was once again a lot of crying. Trust me, my kid is strong willed as well but we were EXHAUSTED so we kept at it. He didn't take the "not falling asleep on the boob anymore" as bad as we thought... but the first 3 days of sleep training were a NIGHTMARE. Lots of crying. I have never been one for CIO but we were at the point where nobody was getting ANY sleep at all so we had to do it. You just have to be persistent and more stubborn than him. It's HARD, really hard, but not impossible. Let him know that he can have the boob, but he can't fall asleep on it anymore. And make up with a lot of cuddles that do not involve nursing.

Good luck! 

SnowshoeMom

This was me.  Totally opposed to CIO, but totally finished with being a pacifier.  We've been slowly working on this since mid-February when my son was 14 months old.  He'll be 16 months old next weekend.

To qualify, I don't know if this is the best solution or the right one for you, but it worked for us. 

We put a mattress on the floor of his room.  I nursed him until he was sleepy but not sleeping.  I then would lie down next to him until he fell asleep.  The first few nights I'd rub his back and sing the ABC's softly to him while he cried.  This crying was really really really different than if I would try to just walk out.  Not as strong or frantic.  He would cry for just a minute or two and would then settle down.  I'd then stay with him until he fell asleep and leave. 

He'd cry less and less every night.  At the beginning it was a couple of times through the ABC's.  By the third night, it was only about 1/2 way through the ABC's and he'd be calm.  Now, he may grunt disapprovingly, but he just lays his head down.  And I leave when he's asleep.

After I kicked the nursing him to sleep at bedtime thing, I moved on to the night nursing.  "Cold turkey".  He was waking up sometimes as often as every 2 hours.  It was killing me.  I knew if I gave in on nursing him even once, it would erase all of our progress.  So I would go in there when he woke up, lay down next to him, rub his back, pretend I was sleeping, and let him cry.  Again, it wasn't the frantic cry, just I'm not getting my way cry.  The night ones were harder.  I would sing the ABC's in my head (to keep "time"); it would take MANY rounds.  I would guess 3-5 minutes each time he woke up the first few nights.  Then down to the minute or so and after longer stretches of sleep.  Then he just stopped waking up in the middle of the night.  It took just over a week.  He now is going to bed at 9:00pm and waking up at 8:00am without waking.  It's heavenly, but the first few night I still kept waking up out of habit / worry!!!

He had been nursing immediately after waking (not in his room), but I've just eliminated that one as well.  Like the last two days. 

My last comfort-nursing battle is the afternoon nap nursing session.  We've had one painful day where it took 30 minutes to get him down for his nap.  Not crying ... less than 5 minutes of that ... but just wanting to play and talk to me.  Again nursing and then laying down with him until he falls asleep.

This was my attempt to break the human pacifier thing without CIO.  My poor guy throws up when he cries franticly.  My goal after fixing the whole nap thing is to eliminate the human teddy bear business.  Sigh.  This is a much longer, more tedious approach.  It's "working" for us though.  So far .

Good luck!

jshf

DS is a major comfort nurser too, so I'm still working on it too.  But people have recommended Dr. Jay Gordon and Elizabeth Pantley for a gentle approach to weaning.  GL!

https://drjaygordon.com/attachment/sleeppattern.html

 

https://www.pantley.com/elizabeth/books/0071444912.php