Night Nursing and Sleeping

missjulierenee · August 2012

Hello! I have mainly been a lurker here. You all provide such great information and is part of the reason I fell into attachment parenting. I need some advice with my baby girl. She is 7.5 months old and she sleeps in a co-sleeper next to us. Tomorrow we are moving her into a pack and play next to our bed because she is starting to pull up on things and we do not want her to fall out. Her sleep time is 10 pm to 10 am. If we try to put her to bed any earlier, she usually will sleep 30 mins and then wake up ready to play. We can get her to sleep at 9 pm at the earliest. This is about the same schedule she had when I carried her.

Lately, she will wake up around 11:00 pm. I will nurse her and then once she slows down I will unlatch her. Then I usually try to place her back in the co-sleeper. At these 11 hours, she does not want to stop nursing. She wants to comfort nurse, which she does it to the extent that it makes me sore. I do not mind her waking up and feeding her, I just need her to go back to sleep.

The problem is? If I do not keep nursing her so will just cry and cry. I try comforting, my husband tries comforting her and all she does it start swing her hands at us and she gets really mad. I do not want her crying it out, I feel so guilty when she cries. I want to try cry because I feel like a bad mom for not being able to help her. I also keep wondering if she is nursing because of her teeth or if she is really hungry. Last night she was batting at her ears, I gave her some medication (which I hate doing, but I only give it in extreme cases like last night). After nursing her for three times last night, I finally decided not to give her any more. I held her and she fussed off and on for 10 mins. She would fall asleep and then wake up crying for a minute then go back to sleep. The rest of the night she does great, it is always at the first part of the night this happens. Do you have any advice? I am not sure if I am doing the right thing or not. I do not know how to make her feel better.

tokenhoser · August 2012

We have had some really rough patches. DS bats at his ears when he's teething and it hurts; I don't think there is anything wrong with a dose of advil or tylenol for a baby in pain. It won't help them sleep unless they're hurting.

Crying beside a parent or in their arms is NOT "cry it out". She knows you're there, she's just not getting what she wants.

I found the only way to get his food intake back to daylight hours was to restrict his night feeds. And that did make him mad. It made me mad to be awake every 45 minutes all night, though, so we reached a point where we had a couple bad nights and then he started eating more in the day time (I offered A LOT) and sleeping somewhat better at night. We're still up at night 1-3 x, but I can function and that's okay.

The other thing I would suggest is that if you want to get her sleeping earlier, move her bedtime by 15 minutes/night every 2-3 nights, rather than trying to move it by an hour or more in one go.

missjulierenee · August 2012

tokenhoser:

We have had some really rough patches. DS bats at his ears when he's teething and it hurts; I don't think there is anything wrong with a dose of advil or tylenol for a baby in pain. It won't help them sleep unless they're hurting.

Crying beside a parent or in their arms is NOT "cry it out". She knows you're there, she's just not getting what she wants.

I found the only way to get his food intake back to daylight hours was to restrict his night feeds. And that did make him mad. It made me mad to be awake every 45 minutes all night, though, so we reached a point where we had a couple bad nights and then he started eating more in the day time (I offered A LOT) and sleeping somewhat better at night. We're still up at night 1-3 x, but I can function and that's okay.

The other thing I would suggest is that if you want to get her sleeping earlier, move her bedtime by 15 minutes/night every 2-3 nights, rather than trying to move it by an hour or more in one go.

Thank you so much! This really helps. The part of about medication, I hate taking medication and I do not like giving it to her unless I really need to. I try alternatives first, but when she is crying hard like last night, I just go straight for the medicaiton. It makes me feel better know it was possibility her teeth. Especially with the bating the ears.

I work full time, so I cannot nurse her at night. I think that is why I have not tried to switch her day and night feedings. I feel like this is a time she gets to have me. It does not bother me to wake up and feed her. It is times like last night where she crys and crys and I cannot help her. And I do not want her to comfort nurse. I have been thinking about giving her more during the day. Thank you for the tip on changing her night schedule. She has been like this from day 1, so I never thought about trying to change it.

haziedaze · August 2012

We've gone through stages like this. Sometimes adding a dream feed has helped. I feed him about 1-2 hours after he goes to sleep and make sure it's a good feed (hand massage, give both sides, rub his back when he starts to drift off). It's hard but I find if I try to make the night feeds good ones he goes a little longer, otherwise he just snacks off and on. I need to wake up more myself to make this happen which is hard because sometimes I just roll over, latch him on, and drift back off, but in the end it's worth it.

missjulierenee · August 2012

haziedaze:

We've gone through stages like this. Sometimes adding a dream feed has helped. I feed him about 1-2 hours after he goes to sleep and make sure it's a good feed (hand massage, give both sides, rub his back when he starts to drift off). It's hard but I find if I try to make the night feeds good ones he goes a little longer, otherwise he just snacks off and on. I need to wake up more myself to make this happen which is hard because sometimes I just roll over, latch him on, and drift back off, but in the end it's worth it.

Thank you for your feed back! I agree, I usually just roll over, latch on, and drift back to sleep.Lately she has only been eating on one side. I should probably try making her eat on both sides, then she might sleep a little deeper. I am glad to see this is a stage and I am not the only one.

Kiedis · August 2012

Does she always go to sleep nursing? In the no cry sleep solution book she talks about breaking the nursing to sleep habit if it's causing problems. You basically wait until they're almost asleep and then pull the nipple away. If they cry you give it back until they calm down, and repeat until they eventually fall asleep on their own. She also recommends the same tactic for pacifiers, I keep starting to try, but then quickly get frustrated and give up.

sadsadie · August 2012

Cluster feedings in the hours up to bedtime? I'd try to stuff her right full and see if that helps at all.

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