# toddler has NEVER gone to sleep without nursing...help!



## lisavark (Oct 27, 2007)

So tonight I kind of had a breakdown to DH and told him that I am sick and tired of always having to be the one to try to get DD to sleep, especially since she's the energizer baby and never. goes. to. sleep. She's 18 months old and has pretty much never fallen asleep without nursing. Maybe three or four times she's conked out in the stroller or the car, but the last time she did that was more than six months ago. I figure I kind of set myself up for this, seeing as I went along with it for so long, but really, this is just her. When she was first born, she would nurse for twenty hours out of twenty-four (I timed it once and she literally was only unlatched for a total of four hours in a twenty-four hour period), and anytime she wasn't latched onto my boob, she was screaming like it was the end of the world. Anyway, so that really was the only way she would go to sleep when she was little. I don't think it would have worked even if I had been willing to try to sleep train her. But now it's driving me CRAZY and something has got to change!

So I talked to DH tonight about it, but the thing is, neither of us has any idea of any method that might work to get her to go to sleep other than nursing. The only thing he could think of is to get some bottles and try giving her breastmilk in a bottle. She's never had a bottle, and it seems kind of crazy to start her on one now...anybody else ever tried this in desperation? If I did, what kind would I get? We've tried pacifiers before and that doesn't help at all; she hates them and screams and spits them out. Of course her nursing really isn't about the milk; half the time she's not even getting milk out, but I don't know what else to do. I would be thrilled if I could get her to go to sleep with a pacifier right now--I could worry about weaning from that later. I really want to nightwean her, but again, the problem is that we've never found any method of getting her to sleep other than nursing.

I've tried the No-Cry Sleep Solution--been trying it for six months, actually--but it hasn't helped at all. Maybe I'm not doing it right. But no matter how many times I pull my boob out of her mouth, she won't go to sleep until it's IN her mouth.









Whew. This post seems really disjointed, but I am frustrated and tired, so...yeah. I'm sure you all understand! Ideas?


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## SubliminalDarkness (Sep 9, 2009)

That all sounds like me! I timed it, too, and my son was nursing between 20 and 22 hours a day, so I totally feel for you.
Around 14 months, I was so exhausted from all of it that DH graciously stepped up. He took over nights completely. I slept on the couch, and he slept with DS2 in the bed. He laid with him. DS2 cried and asked for mama and boobies, and DH said mama and boobies were sleeping, and that DS2 and daddy were going to sleep together now. It took a couple of nights that were apparently rough, but DH said then it was like he figured out it wasn't gonna work, and just went with it.
Now, the only cruddy thing here is that it was over six months before I was able to sleep in bed with them again. We tried a couple of times sooner, but DS2 would wake up wanting to nurse and then we had a huge issue. We did try just cutting back, but it wasn't working, so we went cold turkey on the night weaning and on having DH put DS2 to sleep. He needed the consistency.


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## nina_yyc (Nov 5, 2006)

How heavy is she? Can you walk her around in a carrier until she falls asleep?


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## lisavark (Oct 27, 2007)

Yes, she's only 22 lbs and loves the carrier...but she's never fallen asleep in a carrier without nursing.









On the bright side, today DH decided we were waking her up in the morning at 7:30. This despite the fact that she had stayed up till midnight last night. Which meant that--hallelujah--she took a nap today without too much trouble. Honestly, I don't know if it's even the having-to-nurse-to-sleep that bothers me as much as the unpredictability. I swear her sleep is different every day. I never know whether or when she's going to nap or go to bed. But DH thinks that if we wake her up at the same time every day, eventually her biological rhythms will get sorted out. I hope he's right, because trying to get her to sleep at the same time every day has not worked at all. Maybe we can come at it the other way around.

SubliminalDarkness, your story is VERY encouraging to me. I would not mind at all sleeping in the guest bed for 6 months.


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## Becken (May 28, 2006)

I have the same kind of toddler, and at that age it was really rough. 18 months is a big time for developmental growth, and they usually need the boob more during that time!

However, after she turned 2, Dd was much more relaxed about nursing, and at this point (she turns 3 next week), she only nurses to sleep at nap time. At bedtime, she nurses, I leave, she "reads" for up to an hour (lol), and then asks to be put back into bed. It is MUCH less stress than it used to be.

I'm 4 months pregnant and Dd and I have been talking for a while about how she's not going to nurse anymore once she turns 3. I think it will go okay, although I'm afraid of losing that nap time!

Good luck. It does get easier. Now just may not be the best time to try to change up her schedule or attachment, due to the developmental stuff going on.


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## SeekingJoy (Apr 30, 2007)

For a toddler that old, I would certainly be starting your day as a family at about the same time everyday. 7:30, 9:30, 5:30. It really doesn't matter as long as it works for your family. Not having a typical time to wake up can certainly mess with her sleep-wake cycles.

At 18 months, DS was still taking two naps (9 ish and 2 ish), but DD was only taking one right after an early lunch (12 ish). For years now, we all wake up when DH gets ready for work, we eat breakfast together, we dress to start our day together.


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## paakbaak (Jan 24, 2007)

i stopped nursing my boy to sleep around 18mo. i don´t remember exactly how it went, i remember laying with him, reading a story and cuddling him to sleep.
good luck and alot of consistency!!!


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## RiverSky (Jun 26, 2005)

What if you tried getting her up a little earlier, making sure she gets a good few hours at a playground during the day (10-1 perhaps, eating a picnic lunch at the park?) to tucker her out, and then going on a Mom's Night Out with a couple of friends that evening? Tell your DH to let her fall asleep playing, perhaps, to avoid any crying? LOL!


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## To-Fu (May 23, 2007)

A few months ago when my son was just shy of 18mo, my husband and I instituted nights off. Every week we each take one evening to go off on our own without the kid and do whatever we want. The other parent is responsible for getting the kid fed and in bed for the night. I was nervous about how it would go, since my son is so super nursey, but I guess since I wasn't even in the house, it was fine. He fussed a bit, but his dad was holding him and loving on him and he fell asleep without boobies. Amazing!

I'd guess that your baby's not nursing for food, but for comfort... and there are lots of milk-free ways to get that from both mama and dad. Why not try taking a night out and letting your husband do bedtime? You might be surprised how it goes.


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## To-Fu (May 23, 2007)

P.S. All that said, it is still a natural and normal thing for an 18mo to want to nurse to sleep! But if it's not working for you, then obviously something's got to give.


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## LianneM (May 26, 2004)

I have felt that way too, and often do. I've found that, for me, I have less capacity to be there for my kids at night when I haven't had a break myself. It's really hard - I'm terrible at taking time for myself. But when I do, nursing to sleep and really all of the mama-jobs I do become so much easier and I enjoy them more. Just wanted to throw that out there in case it resonates with you.


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## lisavark (Oct 27, 2007)

Yeah...I'm realizing it's not so much the nursing to sleep as the fact that it always has to be me and I never get a break. I don't mind her nursing to sleep, and I don't mind her nursing all night...I just want her to occasionally be able to fall asleep some other way so DH can watch her or we can--gasp!--get a babysitter and go out and have her actually be asleep when we get home instead of still up and miserable. And the fact that she regularly stays up till 11 pm or midnight, if not later, doesn't help. We have always started our day at a regular time (8:30), but she has never been consistent with naps or bedtime. And believe me, I have TRIED. I've done EVERYTHING. We keep thinking that if we move her schedule earlier by waking her earlier then she'll go to bed earlier, but so far all it does is lead to a miserable, sleep-deprived child.

Today we got her up at 7:30 and--miracle of miracles!--she actually napped from 12:45 to 2:30. She hasn't napped that early in months; usually it's more like 2 to 4 at the earliest, and frequently she goes from 8:30 am till 6 pm and then crashes...and then wakes up at 8 pm and is up till midnight. Anyway, so today we got her up early and she napped early, and by 5:30 pm this evening she was SCREAMING night night and begging to go to bed. So I told her if she went to sleep now she would need to stay asleep all night. She said yes, she wanted that. So we lay down and nursed...an hour later, she rolls over and gets up and wants to play. Ack. So then DH got home, and we had our usual bedtime routine: dinner, stories, bath, pee, pajamas, lie in bed and nurse. We started nursing at 7:30. Now it's 8:45 and she just had a screaming fit in which she tried to get out the bedroom door and kept screaming, No! No! No! I finally gave up and now DH is in there telling her stories. I'm telling you, she'll be up till midnight at least.

Fall asleep playing? Are you kidding me? I took a night off once...I went to see the midnight show of Harry Potter...I nursed her to sleep (for the first time that night) at 11 pm and then left for the show. Fifteen minutes after I left, she woke up, and DH couldn't get her back to sleep...she was up until 3:30 am when I got home. When I say she won't fall asleep without nursing, I am not kidding. She's the energizer baby: she will go FOREVER. I swear I think she could go days without sleeping.

And I did that as a baby---went for days without sleeping, I mean. Seriously. I would go for three or four days without sleeping and then crash for several days. As a newborn. So I'm not crazy to think that my daughter might do that.

Except that I AM crazy, because it's DRIVING ME CRAZY....!!!!!

Anyway, DH is in there trying to get her to sleep now, telling stories and singing songs...ack, I'm so frustrated. Why can't she stay on some kind of predictable schedule? She's actually ok most of the time when I just let her crash whenever she crashes and wake when she wakes...she doesn't seem overtired normally, except for today after we woke her up early. Maybe I should just say screw it and let her stay up all hours of the night. But I will never, never, never be able to have another kid if she keeps going like this. I'd kind of like to have another baby sooner rather than later, so actually that's the biggest issue for me right now--I CAN NOT have another child in the house when her sleep is so freaking crazy and unpredictable.

Whew! Sorry to yell at this thread! I'm yelling at you ladies instead of at my daughter!









Oh, and that's great advice to get her outside to tucker her out, except I already do that every single day. ALL I do is try to wear her out. We go to playgroup every single day (I'm not exaggerating) and to the playground or the park or the zoo--somewhere outside where she can run around--every single afternoon. When it's raining, we go somewhere indoors she can run around and be around other kids. Seriously, I run this kid ragged. It doesn't help.

Although the fact that it's been raining for a week probably has something to do with her schedule being so awful the last couple of days, now that I think about it. If she isn't outdoors pretty much all day, every day, then she won't sleep at all. Which is what's happening right now. I swear, tomorrow I'm taking her to the park, rain or shine, and forcing her to run around in the mud.


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## InMediasRes (May 18, 2009)

O so many hugs to you! My DS was the same way, stayed up until 11 or 12, some nights 1 or 2, would never nap predictably, etc. I never slept for more than 45 min at a time before he turned 13 months. I too absolutely hated the fact that I was the only one who could put him to sleep, and sometims that would take hours.

Then one night, after hours of attempting to get him to sleep, while DH was out with the guys for beers and a movie, I finally told him, "Mommy is exhausted. _You_ are exhausted. Mommy is going to sleep. You can do it too, when you're ready." Then I seriously rolled over on my stomach and crashed. I don't know what time it was when he went to sleep, but he wasn't crying, and he sure as hell did it without nu nus that night. I think he was about 16-17 mo.

After that, I decided we weren't nursing to sleep for bed anymore. I snuggled, I sang, I let him pet my hair, but mostly I pretended to be asleep and put him back down in the bed when he tried to get out. He never really cried too much about it, but it took a few weeks for it to not take fooooorrrrrreeeevvvvveeeeerrrr for him to fall asleep. Then when I felt like he was used to it, DH took over. For a while we did every other night, but then DH told me that I did the heavy lifting for a long time, and now he does bed time every night except for Tue (his night off).

He weaned completely at 19 mo, but mostly because I was preg and had no milk, and couldn't stand him nursing at night. He still does not sleep well for his age group, but he is heaven compared to the first 2 years.

I seem to remember a really bad sleep thing coinciding with language explosion around 19 mos. I also remember my DH forcing me to tak time off right before bedtime so that I could get through those hours without murdering someone. Maybe you could just take a 30-45 min break while your DH gets her ready for bed? Then you shoulf have a whole Saturday morning off or something.


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## lisavark (Oct 27, 2007)

Well, last night after about a half-hour screaming fit and a brief break for me, she actually fell asleep at 9:30. This is actually really early for her, so that was a huge victory! And then this morning she woke up to nurse at 7:30 and wasn't unhappy when I only nursed her a little and didn't let her go back to sleep. And then--big, big victory--she NAPPED at exactly the same time she did yesterday. 12:45. This despite the fact that we were just leaving playgroup at 12:30 and didn't get in bed until 12:45--she fell asleep right away, and it only took 15 minutes for me to be able to take my boob out of her mouth and LEAVE. Yay! So I think maybe we have the mornings down, and maybe we'll have a predictable nap schedule now.

Tonight I decided to just try to start bedtime really, really early. I figure that way I won't miss any possible early bedtime windows. If she's napping about 6 hours after she wakes up, then she probably needs to go to bed around 6 hours after she wakes from nap, right? Theoretically.

So I fed her dinner at 5:30 (!!) and got her in her pjs even before DH got home. And by 7:30 we were ALL in bed with the lights out and her nursing. She kept saying, "Night night," but she was also rolling around and not acting tired at all, so now I'm taking a break while DH tells stories and sings songs. At 8:15 I'll go back in there. She woke up from her nap at 1:45 today--an hour earlier than yesterday--so it seems logical that she might be able to fall asleep at 8:30. That would be SO freaking awesome...that would be an ideal bedtime for her in my world.









Wish us luck!!!

And once I get the right times for sleep figured out, man, she is going to sleep without nursing. If we can just get her freaking biological clock set, that will make it a lot easier to at least know that she's tired when we're trying to get her to sleep.


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## spmamma (Sep 2, 2007)

OP, it sounds like you are making progress! My DD was an awful sleeper, although in no way approaching what you are going through. One thing that did help (even before we night weaned around 20 MO - and eventually weaned at 25 MO) was to make bedtime extremely boring.

We go through our normal routine of potty, teeth, jammies, stories and prayers then it's lights out. After that, the only rule is that DD must lay down quietly in bed. We do not get up for anything (with the exception of pottying when she was training). No drinks. No snacks. No extra stories. Bedtime means bedtime. That, and I sit in a chair nearby (I used to sit in bed next to her when I wasn't so hugely pregnant) and read a book in the dark - with my book light, of course.

At first it took forever, especially after she night weaned and wasn't nursing to sleep anymore. But eventually, she understood that bedtime meant staying in bed all night long.

Sometimes, all the extras (stories, songs, etc.) are just too stimulating for some kids. My DD is one of those kids - there's no way she'll ever fall asleep with me reading to her. She needs it to be dark and quiet.

Best of luck to you!


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## everything to one (Aug 17, 2009)

i was in the same situation a month or two ago with my 19-20 month old. two things that worked for me. first i prayed to God in desperation that he would make her sleep without me. (i had nursed her to sleep but what really bothered me was that she kept pacifying all night. i too had tried the no cry sleep solution to some extent for about a week and was feeling hopeless). then i had the idea to drag her down stairs when she woke me up b/c my back was hurting from lying on my side (im also 5 months preg). so i basically asked her if she wanted a snack (she was half asleep but said yes anyway) i took her down and fed her some cheerios and milk. then nursed her on the couch while i got on line (and read about how other moms deal with this type of thing...!!!) i figured at least if i was going to be awake and irritated that i might as well enjoy reading something or get on FB...lol. well soon enough she was squirming and woke up and said "bed!" i said "OK but if we go to bed no more nursing. are you all finished???" i dont know if she agreed or just kept insisting on bed but she did hear me. we went to bed and she laid on the pillow and looked at the ceiling (and held her new sleeping toy "sleepy baby" which we are trying to start so she'll have something to hug other than me when she wakes up in the middle of the night) and for the first time in a year and a half she fell asleep without nursing. it was like 3 am but still! progress!!! the next two nights we did some version of the same thing minus the cheerios. i never got her completely night weaned but she has slowly and on her own terms stopped waking up as much. she used to wake up every night at 12mn to nurse and now its not until 230am. i still cant believe im saying this- she sleeps from bedtime till 230am! she talks in her sleep more and does cry in her sleep for a second but settles herself right away before i even get upstairs. so i dont know if its all thanks to God for hearing my cries for help or if she is growing up but know that you are not alone and it will get better! i know that teething makes her pacify more at night and ive heard this gets better after 2 yrs old. (not that far off!!) so we do tylenol at bedtime if she has been pulling on her teeth or unusually fussy. that helped too. OH also my DD is going down to just one nap a day. i really think that is helping her sleep better at night. its only been about a week that we've done it but come to think of it thats when she started sleeping till 230am without me. if your child is 18months, it might be time to keep them up during the day longer and longer until they arent napping until 1230pm-230pm or whatever. i have to take my DD to the park or keep her playing with a friend...something she really likes. if we stay home and do nothing all day she ends up wanting to nap more often. good luck!!!!


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## lisavark (Oct 27, 2007)

One nap? Ha. She's been on one nap since she was 11 months old at least, and she frequently doesn't nap at all. She has gone from 8:30 or 9 am to 7 pm without sleeping at all...and when she does that, she only sleeps for two hours and then gets up again and wants to play. Did I mention she's the energizer baby?

But...today, for the THIRD day in a row, she is napping at a reasonable time! 12:30 today instead of 12:45, which is absolutely amazing. That's a huge, huge victory...if I can count on her napping at a decent time, then at least I can count on having some sort of a break during the day. It's the nonstop from 9 am till evening and then all-night nursing that's really been out of control.

But last night she was up till 10:30, despite about two hours of nursing (with a break in-between because I couldn't take it anymore). I am seriously tempted to just let DH try to get her to sleep tonight.

I totally agree that it's normal and natural for a baby this age to want to fall asleep nursing, and I have no problem with doing it most of the time. It's the fact that I HAVE to do it ALL the time that's getting to me. I just want her to be ABLE to fall asleep some other way when she's really, really tired. Just occasionally. So I can get a break.

Anyway, thanks so much for all the support! It has really helped me to be able to vent here. I am so thrilled with the fact that she's napping right now. If anybody has any suggestions for getting her to sleep at a reasonable time at night, I am all ears. I actually wouldn't even mind nursing her to sleep every night if I could even just count on her to fall asleep at about the same time every night. Especially if I could count on her to stay asleep for a little while--three or four hours would be fine. Like 8 to midnight, that would be wonderful. Because then I could put her to sleep and leave her sleeping with a babysitter for a couple of hours while DH and I went out. Which would be absolute heaven. But right now anytime we want to go out in the evenings, we just have to accept the fact that she will be up, exhausted and crying and begging for night-night, until we get home. If I put her to bed before we leave, she'll wake up within half an hour after we're gone. If we keep her up, she'll be miserable and exhausted but unable to sleep. It just sucks.

Last night we were basically doing bedtime for about 4 hours, because we started bedtime routine at 6 pm and she wasn't asleep until 10:30...

Aaack!!!!


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## AlicesMama (Nov 23, 2008)

How long is she napping for during the day? I have a 16 month old and if I let her, she would nap from around 12:30pm until 3pm sometimes but they would be waaaaaaaaaaay too much sleep for her. She needs a solid 5 hour gap between wake up from lunch-time nap to bed-time. So if she wakes at 2:30, I can put her to bed at 7:30pm. If she wakes at 3pm, it's got to be 8pm and so on. The more sleep she has at lunchtime, the harder it is to get her to sleep at night.

Stick with the routine, babies thrive on it and so do Mums too! LIke you say, if you have a predictable time during the day when you know you can shut off for a bit, it makes a huge difference to your life enables you to give yourself that much more when DD is awake.

Keep going, in the evening she will eventually get it. I would try cutting the nap time down a bit and see if it helps.








Good luck!


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## AlicesMama (Nov 23, 2008)

Sorry and I should add, that by 7:30 and I am laying her down to nurse to sleep. Usually it takes 10 mins and she's asleep. I am not just taking her up to bed at that time.She would get wired if I left it that long and then sometimes it can be harder to get her to sleep.

Oh timing is everything with sleep and babies/toddlers!!


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## lisavark (Oct 27, 2007)

A long nap is definitely NOT the problem; she hardly ever naps for two entire hours, and sometimes it's less than an hour. But--and I still cannot believe this--she is asleep right now. We were kind of giving up on it because dinner took forever to cook and we were all upstairs watching a movie during dinner because DH and I both have a cold and feel like crap, but anyway, at 7ish she was acting kind of fussy, and I asked her if she wanted to go to bed...she said no, but I was like, let's try. So all three of us trooped downstairs, and suddenly she started crying, "Night night! Night night!" So I grabbed her baby doll and her blankie (two very recent additions to our bedtime routine in the hopes of moving toward night weaning) and didn't even brush her teeth, just lay down with her and nursed. That was 7:15. Within fifteen minutes she was lying still with her eyes closed, and by 7:47 I was able to take my boob out of her mouth and come out here--which means she's sound asleep. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!




















































































:j oy












































Victory!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And I know I said my goal was to get her to fall asleep without nursing, but seriously, this is such a big deal; you can't even imagine. She has NEVER gone to bed for the night before 8 pm. And she has NEVER fallen asleep so quickly at night, not even when she was a newborn. I feel like such an idiot. And I've TRIED to do it this early before...really, I have...but maybe it was the combination of an early morning and an early bedtime that I was missing. Never quite hit the sweet spot before, maybe.

Or maybe she's feeling crappy too and so I got lucky tonight.

Either way, I'm so beyond thrilled! I'm sure she won't sleep all night, but heck, I don't really care when she wakes up at this point as long as she doesn't wake up wanting to get up and play. If she wakes up wanting to nurse and go back to sleep, I consider tonight a total, unmitigated success.


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## lisavark (Oct 27, 2007)

Now to go drag DH out of bed so we can spend--gasp!!!--quality time in the evening without DD around!!!!


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## lisavark (Oct 27, 2007)

And of course she woke up (screaming) after half an hour. And of course then I went in and nursed her. And of course then she was popping on and off the boob and just generally not going to sleep.

So...I gave up. At 8:44 I told her boobies were going night night, and she could too. And I quit nursing. She screamed and cried pretty much nonstop for about half an hour, and then on and off for another hour. But at 9:44 she climbed over my body and draped herself over me and...I still can't believe it...she fell asleep. It only took an hour! Wow!

Which is pretty awful in a way, but honestly, I am totally at the point where I'm ok with her crying for an hour for a few nights if it means I can get some evenings to myself. And the weirdest part is that I actually enjoyed lying there cuddling with her as she cried. I think so much of our physical contact for her entire life has been nursing that there was something very sweet for me about lying there holding her and NOT nursing her. Feeling her little hands and feet and looking at her face instead of just feeling her lips and teeth on my boob.









I still can't believe she fell asleep...I never in a million years would have thought it would happen so fast. I thought she was going to take hours for sure. Tomorrow night I'm starting bedtime at 6:30, nursing her to sleep for the night at 7:00, and then not nursing again until midnight or one. Because those are the hours that I really want her to not wake up for. Yay! So excited! Thanks so much for the support, everyone! I never would have had the guts to stop nursing her for that hour tonight without this thread. This is totally going to change my life; I can feel it already!!! Yay!


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## editornj (Jan 4, 2008)

Hi. I haven't read all the posts. Just the first and the last. But congratulations!

I stopped nursing DS to sleep a while ago. DH and I flanked him on the bed and sang to him, talked, cuddled, rocked (while still on the bed)... we did whatever we could to calm him... everything but nursing. It was hard but in an hour he fell asleep. I was amazed!

We stuck with this. And it was still hard for a couple days, but then it got better and better. Then, it was great. DS just knew it was bedtime, and he'd curl up to one of us.

So glad you made some headway. Now you know she can do it! Don't go back, because those little stinkers learn quickly how to get everyone back into old habits.

(Just in case you read my other posts, we recently started having problems, but that's due to my being pregnant and having so little breastmilk for him before bed.)


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## lisavark (Oct 27, 2007)

Well, tonight was another amazing success! Even though last night I nursed her when she woke up at 1 am and she wanted to nurse NONSTOP for the rest of the night. Literally every half hour. That was rough. But today I decided to do bedtime really early, so we were all in bed (nursing) by 7:00. She nursed for an hour and then was finally starting to act sleepy at 8:00. I told her the boobs were going night night and she could too. And this time, she only cried for about five minutes. She screamed--she was MAD!!--but I picked her up and rocked her and she immediately got quiet. Then I lay her down and cuddled her and she fell asleep in maybe ten minutes. !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously...I'm starting to wonder why I didn't try this earlier. I totally don't want to let my next baby cry at all when they're young, and that's why I didn't do it before--I wanted to wait till she was old enough and verbal enough to understand what was going on. But she just fell asleep in TEN MINUTES. !!??!!?? This is a child who on a GOOD night takes only an HOUR to fall asleep. I am in so much shock. She was sound asleep by 8:30!!

Of course she'll probably wake up screaming soon...but it's already been more than half an hour, so that's better than last night. I'll probably just nurse her whenever she wakes up. But I hope she goes till 1 again, since that's kind of my goal--to nightwean her for the first part of the night.

Thanks again for all the support! This is so amazing. I can't believe she's napping more regularly now, too. I seriously can't believe she's on any kind of a schedule. I hope this lasts. Last time I got her on a schedule, it lasted for a week.


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## editornj (Jan 4, 2008)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *lisavark* 
Thanks again for all the support! This is so amazing. I can't believe she's napping more regularly now, too. I seriously can't believe she's on any kind of a schedule. I hope this lasts. Last time I got her on a schedule, it lasted for a week.

LOL. Glad something is working.







Hopefully it keeps getting better and better.


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## lisavark (Oct 27, 2007)

this is my last update, I promise, but just had to share: she slept SIX STRAIGHT HOURS last night!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! From midnight till 6 am. Then she nursed and slept for another two hours. Words cannot describe how amazing I feel. I haven't had that long a stretch of sleep in almost 19 months. I love life today.


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## paakbaak (Jan 24, 2007)

i had to write...i´m very happy for you!!!!
i also believe that it´s perfectly normal for an 18mo to nurse at night...but i also belive that your mental health is the backbone of all the family´s mental health. so, you are the important one now.
i felt, at one point...i coulldn´t even think about my son on my boob at night. it just reaaly drove me crazy. he kept nursing during the day all the time until he self-weaned at 2yo, but couldn´t take it at night.

i´m sure, 100%, that your daughter sensed that in you., she also was feeling uneasy about your feelings. i think it´s wonderful that you on this road! congrats!!!!!!!


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## lisavark (Oct 27, 2007)

Well, I just saw this thread up in the posts again, and it's funny that you said that bit about not going back, editornj, because we have totally gone back.







Every time I tried to NOT nurse her was just so stressful that I finally decided to try to nightwean her for all night, because at least then she would understand WHEN the boobs were coming back. I felt like she was confused by the doubt about when I was going to nurse her again (and frankly, I was confused by it too). So we had two nights of not nursing all night, and they were absolutely awful. She was up screaming for two or three hours in the middle of both of those nights. The third night I was nursing her at bedtime and thinking about facing another night...and...well, I just couldn't do it. For the first time since DD was born, I felt guilty about my parenting choices. For the first time since DD was born, I felt like I was doing something wrong. And I was dreading the night. Just dreading it.

So I gave up, and I nursed her all night every time she woke. But there have been several good gains from this whole experience. For one thing, there was one night that DH and I went out and my mom put DD to sleep. She rocked her, and DD actually fell asleep. So that was absolutely amazing. And DH has now put DD to sleep quite a few times, and we both know he can do it. And, best of all, DD is really getting on a schedule. Her naps are absolutely predictable now: she falls asleep exactly at 1 and sleeps till around 3. Sometimes she wakes up earlier, but then she always wants to nurse back to sleep until 3. Being able to count on her napping has done more for me than I ever could have imagined. And knowing what time it'll be is almost as big--it's so hard to plan your day when you have no idea when your child is going to nap! I used to spend all morning stressing about when I needed to be home, but now I don't have to worry about it--I know. Today I got caught up in errands, and we left the bookstore to come home at 12:30, but we were home by 12:45 and she was asleep by 1:00. So that's huge.

And bedtime is getting a lot better. She's been going to sleep at 10, which is later than I'd like, but the past few nights it's only taken her a little while (half an hour or less) to fall asleep. Considering I used to be happy if it "only" took an HOUR, that's a HUGE improvement. Last night she fell asleep 15 minutes after I started nursing her!

So my plan now is to keep nursing her whenever she wakes for at least another week or so while I try to move her bedtime a little earlier. If I can get her to go to sleep regularly by 9ish, then we'll focus again on going to sleep without nursing. I think if I wake her earlier and move her nap earlier, it won't be too hard to get her to bed earlier too. The trouble is that DH and I like to sleep in till 8:15! But I'm going to try to move her whole schedule earlier by fifteen minute increments. I wouldn't mind getting up at 7 if she could be asleep by 8:30 at night.


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## willowsmom (Oct 28, 2004)

Oh mama. *hugs* I can just "hear" how frustrated you are.

Night-nursing is usually the last to go... Willow nursed herself to sleep until she was 4. She goes to bed with us and wakes up with me...we keep it really low-key here, and I know that doesn't work for everyone.

We would lay down and I'd hold off on nursing her right away, we'd read and relax and "talk" and eventually she started falling asleep without nursing.

I wish you luck. It's a process...and this phase doesn't last forever...but it sure can feel like it.


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