Any advice/success stories with night weaning,esp' Dr.Gordan's theory? Finding it might be confusing..:(

[mammainlove]

Hi, I'm on my second week of trying to night wean my 19month old. I'm down to just feeding him once in the night. He still wakes up 2-4 times&asks for milk, we co-sleep. It doesn't take long to settle him usually. I'm thinking about the next step being Dr.Gordan's theory, not feeding at all between 11&6. Has anyone had any experience, success with this? It seems like it might be confusing for DS, i.e."can have milk sometimes in the night, but not others, why?" As obviously he doesn't have concept of time.

I'm feeling terribly guilty rejecting him, he absolutely ADORES breastmilk,and sulks back to sleep when I say no :'(

We did something like Dr Gordon's method with DS1 when he was about 20 months except I'm pretty sure we went for "from when I went to bed til when we were getting up" rather than selecting a time. We usually had a small bedside light on in the room until I went to sleep, so it was easy enough to go "it's dark now, sleep time for everyone, night time, milk at getting up time", etc.

Thanks. I wish he would understand if I say stuff like that, but he still can't talk and just cries when I say no.

We found deploying He Who Does Not Have The Boobs for comforting was useful for a couple of nights of the "not feeding at all" bit, it seemed to get him used to the idea that the all night snack bar was not open.

We used dr Gordon too when ds was about 16 months. We started off with the 11-6 approach but quickly switched it to bedtime-morning, with morning being rather loosely defined at first! It took about 3 weeks in total iirc.

Thanks mammas. Leedy, I'm not sure what you mean by He who.. Is this a book, theory? X

I think it's Leedy's DH who settles the baby

Ah, gotcha. (Duh!) X

Bump x

DD was older when we night weaned (using Dr G's method), but I used a lot of "mummy milk is asleep, mummy milk in the morning". Have water to offer in case of thirst (and protesting loudly can make them thirsty!) I found if you stick to one phrase, it is less confusing. Can't reason with a toddler in the middle of the night!

Sending DH to settle may work better with a younger toddler, DD wasn't having any of that though.

Another tip, make sure nightwear covers you up well. I was wearing pj tops backwards for a few nights to make sure there was no access at all as if she thought she could get to them it would make her more upset. When my top went upto my neck, there wasn't anywhere for her to try and get to them from.

If you really don't feel comfortable with it, it's ok to stop, and try again in a few months. We found 18/19 months a really tricky time for sleep, I wondered if there was some sort of growth or developmental spurt going on.

Good luck, it's not easy, but on the rare occasions DD tries to ask for milk at night now, she'll 99% of the time go straight back to sleep once I tell her no.