Advise me on night weaning please! I need my sleep back

[JimHalpertsPA]

Hi all,

I have a 15 mo DD. She was a fairly rubbish sleeper since birth but around her first birthday I thought we made some real progress and she was starting to do some longer stretches (5-7 hrs... hallelujah!!!). However about a month ago, we both got the flu and here we are back to square bloody ONE. She is waking almost every hour, sometimes less, occasionally will do a nice "long" 3 hr stretch. I am not keen to sleep train as she is what most people would agree is a high needs baby. Patting her and holding her hand/comforting in her cot does not work, she wants to be held or breastfed. She is the type of baby who will cry until she vomits if I don't pick her up.

I'm exhausted, I went back to work briefly but quit again as I had anxiety about making mistakes due to exhaustion (my field has zero margin for error, it can end badly).

The only solution I can think of is to night wean, however I've been told by several people that this is best done after 18 months. Do I stick it out for a few more months? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I've not night weaned myself yet. My ds is nearly 1 so not ready. However Sarah Ockwell - Smith has a method in her book 'the gentle sleep book' she says it's gentlest from 18 months on but that it can be used from 12 months. And she's totally anti sleep training. She dies say you should first optimise sleeping conditions in every other way first fir it to be effective which would take about 8 weeks. That pretty much takes you to 18 months doesn't it?

Thank you @LGBirmingham! I will look into this

If you try it I'd love to hear how it goes for you.

Hi @JimHalpertsPA, I have one of these too! Pretty much everything you said applies here, my DD is the same age, she's never slept through and last did a random 7 hour stretch at 8 months old. Last night was a particularly bad one, she woke 5 times in 4 hours before midnight 😭. Breastfeeding is the only thing that makes her sleep at night, she is rocked in the pram for her nap though. I've been looking at Jay Gordon nightweaning but not ready to bite the bullet yet. I'm working full time and I can't imagine surviving on even less sleep than I do now if it takes hours to settle her without milk.

To be honest @WutheringShites86 when I read on Jay Gordon, it didn't feel at all gentle to me. I did nightwean DS with minimal upset, and will post how if you or anyone else is interested, but it's long so let me know if you'd like that. (and wasn't a quick fix either in terms of achieving it)

@Harrysmummy246 I'd be interested to know for future reference.

@Harrysmummy246 yes I'd be interested to hear too please. The thing that makes me unsure about the Jay Gordon method is the idea of using other comfort methods to get baby back go sleep in the window you're not feeding. For my DD there is nothing else that makes her sleep at night! She has so much stamina and can stay awake for hours, I can't see how it wouldn't just turn into a form of crying it out until she crashes out. Sometimes when she's been poorly we've been able to rock her to sleep but usually anything other than the boob just makes her angry.

My husband went in and held her whilst she cried with a little beaker of water, I stayed away! Took about 10 days but realised he wasn't worth waking up for and slept through like a dream after that! X

Right- i'll try and summarise...
DS more or less stopped daytime BF by himself about 18mo.

I got 'Loving Comfort- A toddler weaning story' and we read that everyday gradually talking more about being a big boy like the boy in the book and how that boy had no more milkies etc.

Introduced rules on bedtime feed about messing/ delatching- 3 strikes and done, with a countdown warning when I'd had enough even if he hadn't had his 3 out.

Overnight, still bedsharing, gradually introduced a countdown on each feed/ wake and had him delatch/ delatched him while less fully asleep.

Offered a cuddle if he seemed receptive but if not accepted, BF, without a time to try etc- sorry, couldn't be faffed getting him and I upset for x minutes before I BFed and went straight back to sleep.

Gradually he got happier with cuddles and or a very short BF so we talked about it and said milkies and mummy tired, let's just cuddle, but had this talk in the day time.

He asked a couple of times over 3 nights then didn't ask again- but didn't get upset as we'd done the groundwork.

Sending DH in wouldn't have worked, DS would have been upset, I'd have been upset, nobody would have had more sleep. Didn't take away the comfort of bedsharing either.

So yeah, took best part of 3 months but, more importantly to me, it wasn't imposed and causing upset.

Thanks @Harrysmummy246, that's interesting. We're cosleeping too so me not being in the room isn't an option at the moment and I don't want to move DD and nightwean at the same time I don't think.

Maybe I'll hold out a few more months and see if she's able to understand the plan!

I was pleasantly surprised it worked TBH- I'd read lots and kind of pulled together what I thought might work for us. As i say, it was snail's pace but my main priority was no upset and still trying to maximise sleep so....

@Harrysmummy246 that's great you managed to do it with such little upset. 3 months doesn't sound a long time for the process to me ay all. We don't bed share but ds is on a floor bed in his own room. I wonder if this would still work for us?

His sleep has recently improved with him averaging 2 wakes a night, still exhausting though. But I'm hoping it will continue to improve. However having night weaning as an idea in the back of my mind helps as a potential end to the sleep deprivation.

We were bed sharing on a floor bed so I could at least creep out from him going to sleep to a wake up @LGBirmingham
As much for my sleep as his!