Night weaning regression? 14M

[MoreThanRubies]

DD (14M) had been a pretty good sleeper, usually managing all night. She’s been poorly recently and has been waking for breastfeeds for the past two weeks. She’s recovering now, but still insisting on feeds to settle. Will this stop? I need her to go back to sleeping through. She self settles at the start of the night and eats and drinks well during the day. Will she go back to her old pattern? How can I settle her without feeding her?

We had to use the Ferber method a few times to reset our kids’ sleep after they’d been ill. During sickness, I’d happily go in as many times as they needed to give them a feed, especially if they had sore throats. But it got very old 2-3 weeks after they’d recovered! So, we would speak to them throughout the day and remind them that “night-time is for sleeping, not for eating”, and then when they woke up my DH would go in to them, gently repeat the mantra, stroke their back, and leave the room again. There would be protest tears, but we’d stick with it with DH going in every 5 minutes, then 7, then 10, and they’d always settle soon enough and then go back to sleeping through the night after 2-3 nights.

It’s horrid that when you first sleep train and think “gee, that really wasn’t so bad, isn’t it wonderful that we can all sleep now!”… that you may need to do it again a few months later. Argh!

Solidarity. :-)

@UpToMyElbowsInDiapers thank you, I was wondering if we’d need to do that. We originally Ferbered for naps and it (amazingly) led to her sleeping through the night. Everything seems more desperate at night.

If you solved naps, you can definitely solve nights! Naps are usually way harder.