I have an almost 17 month old who still wakes every few hours to nurse back to sleep.
If you never night weaned, when would you say your LO started sleeping longer blocks? I thought I heard around 18 months before, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up.
Re: If you never night weaned
Sorry, 18 months is when he started nursing every 2 hours and I lost my ability to cope.
Not every baby is a nuts as mine, though.
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Boo. Mine is crazy, so that will probably be him. Has he slowed down any?
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ahh, I gotcha. It is exhausting!
Token - what method did you use? Do/did you bedshare? I am reaching my breaking point with nighttime nursing since it's been an every 2-3hr thing for a while now. I need longer stretches, and with bedsharing it's almost becoming more disruptive to my sleep because he is big/wild.
I am thinking we will move him to his own floor mattress in his own room but we just started daycare so I'm thinking it will be another month. Sigh. But I'm gathering info for when it eventually happens.
My LO is very attached to nursing, and I know you've talked about your LO being the same way. Just wondering how it went.
My LO moved into his crib between 6 and 9 months (I started putting him there after his first wakeup, and then over time just put him there more than I slept with him), so he was used to being on his own. Most of my "method" involved giving him up to 5 minutes to go back to sleep when he cried. And, shockingly, he mostly did. We took turns going in, and in about 4 nights he just stopped waking up all the freaking time.
I do still nurse at night when he's sick or teething, but he can now get back to sleeping in a night when we stop.
theleakyboob has a good recap of doing the Jay Gordon method while bedsharing. Generally, I'd say you know when you've had enough. And when you've had enough, you'll be able to change it.
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This was my experience as well. DD escalated around 18 months and it was not working for me any more. She happened to be in a bedsharing phase at the time (she was in and out of our bed over various periods for the first two years) and I just did the, "milky is going night night now, you can have milky in the morning." She accepted that amazingly well, actually, and would just roll over and go back to sleep. I did prep her by talking about it at bedtime, saying that it was bedtime for DD, and bedtime for mommy, and bedtime for the milky too.
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Emmeline Grace 03.27.13
DD went down to once a night around a year and just as I was getting used to that she started waking up every 2-3 hours again (usually every 3). We went to Europe at 16 months and she was waking up every 2 hours (more than when she was 4 months). I would nurse and she would go back to sleep. One night DH told me to let her cry...that lasted for 30 minutes and she just escalated. My sister and all her neighbors could hear it. After 30 minutes I swore I would never do that again.
Once we were back home and she was back on schedule I had to do something. I wanted her back to every 4 hours at the most (so 2x a night). She would wake up and I would lie down next to her on the floor (she was/is in a crib) and would sing the song I sing to her at bedtime. Se did cry and protest but somehow it didn't feel as bad since I was right there with her. After two night she was fine and down to 2x a night. She did that for a while and around 2 she went to 1x a night on most nights (except when sick). In the last month or two she is starting to STTN a lot more, most nights actually. If she wakes up I nurse her though.
She still nurses before bed (but stopped nursing to sleep around 15 months unless she skipped her nap) and I actually started nursing her to sleep for naps around that time when she switched to sleeping in her crib for naps (until then she absolutely refused to sleep in her crib for naps only). I still nurse her (to sleep) for naps now but she falls asleep fine alone at daycare .
It works for us. She will be my one and only and she will grow up soon enough. If it works for you and her than who cares. I was warned against nursing to sleep because it would create problems. But it has worked (and still is) for us and that is all that matters.
DS2 - Oct 2010 (my VBAC baby!)
At 18 months Dd was still up every two hours to nurse and I was at the end of my rope. We used the Jay Gordon method of night weaning and went from 6 wake-ups to 1 (which is technically her morning session).
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I have yet to night wean my 19 1/2 month old daughter. Very recently, she dropped down to nursing just twice a night--around 1am and 5am most nights. I keep thinking about night weaning her, but I just haven't developed a plan!
It seems to be two steps forward, one step back when it comes to night nursing. It gets a little better, then she'll have a rough night, but then it gets a little better again.
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I know it's not what you want to hear, but my son got worse around 13 mos.
We did Dr.Jay Gordon's method for night weaning and it worked really well. He is almost 15 mos and sleeps from 6:30pm until 6:30-7:00am now.
I honestly thought it would never happen. Good luck!
DS born via unplanned C-section at 40w6d
My son cut down from waking twice at night down to once at about 18 months, from there until ~2 years he was reliably getting up once a night. Then around 2 years he started randomly sleeping through the night. Now he wakes up once during the night, one or two nights a week, usually due to a leaky diaper, cold, etc.
I've never attempted any sort of night weaning. When he got to be about 18 months, I started to climb into bed with him and nurse him. If I fell asleep, then I would wake up later and climb out. If I managed to stay awake I would slip out once he was back to sleep.
I thought he'd sleep great once weaned but that didn't happen until we stopped bed sharing and even room sharing. It was too stimulating for us to be there.
18 months was a bad age for us. Teething definitely played a part in that.
Sometime around two she cut down to one nursing session a night; when she came into our room from her room.
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