Toddler Wakes Up To Nurse Too Often

Dear Parent,

The idea of an uninterrupted toddler sleep comes from the western practice of separate sleeping without breastfeeding. Toddlers who sleep, as they should, with their mothers, wake up to breastfeed. You feel frustrated when woken up only because you have the thought that you should not be woken up. Without this thought, why would being woken up at night bother you? Who would you be without the story that it is “frustrating to be woken up?” 

Without this thought you may be able to experience the opposite thought: It is delightful to be woken up. You are woken up by your sweet adorable toddler, and you get to feel his presence, smell his sweetness and cuddle with him as he nurses. Sounds heavenly to me. I recall nights of hoping to be woken up sooner, so I can savor more moments of such joy.

Enjoy your child’s night nursing. He will grow out of it right on time and you will miss it. To be sure that his need is authentic, avoid putting him in bed ahead of you or leaving him to nap without your presence. When babies and toddlers sense that after they fall asleep mom leaves, they often develop an anxious sleep pattern, waking up more often in order to assure themselves that mom is there and the boob is there. When your child know that you never leave, he wakes up not to check if you are there, but simply to nurse.

Warmly, Naomi Aldort, http://authenticparent.com/index.html