Night Waking with 22 month old - only wants mommy to nurse

[jrdf716]

My 22 month old daughter goes to sleep without problem (most nights).  She nurses downstairs and then daddy puts her and her 3 1/2 year old sister to bed.  They share a room and she is still in her crib. 

The problem is that she wakes up at least two times per night to nurse.  I let her nurse and lay her down totally awake and she goes back to sleep.  I am wiped out from this schedule at night.  Our typical day is:
wake 7:30 am
breakfast 8:00 am
lunch 12:00 pm
nap 12:45-3:00 (I wake her at 3:00) (she nurses to sleep sometimes and sometimes doesn't nap)
bedtime 7:45 lights out - usually asleep by 8:00

Night waking 11:00, 3:00 and 6:00

We tried the past couple of nights for daddy to go into her room when she wakes up but she will not settle down - she is screaming and crying for mommy.  He eventually takes her downstairs and reads books until she settles down.  He tries to lay her back down but that doesn't always work.  They were up from 1:30-4:30am last night. 

We feel like wi/wo will not work because she never settles down when daddy comes in and i don't think she'll be happy if I come in and don't let her nurse. 

We need help - any advice would be greatly appreciated!!  Thank you!

[Colin Macs Mom]

I can't speak from experience here as I didn't nurse and only have one LO, but there is absolutely no reason that a LO her age would need to eat at night unless she's not getting enough to eat during the day. I can't say what worked for me, but I know some others have had success by offering less time every couple of nights until the feeds are gone. Or cold turkey is an option as well if you think you could both handle that in the end.

[Roseii]

Could you try giving her a sippy cup of water and staying with her whilst she has some of that instead? Sorry, no personal experience here either.
*hugs* you must be soooo tired
x

[Shiv52]

My LO is 20 months.  We hadn't had NWs for a while but we had a run of illness from November and then Christmas was upon us and I'd gotten into a bad habit of nursing if she woke.  Firstly because she wasn't eating great when she was sick and the just because it was easy to get her to sleep.  But I can't keep up with the NWs!  And she was not impressed if DH tried to settle her but I need my sleep.  So since New Year when she has been waking I was giving her a cuddle, and putting her back in her cot.  She'll say 'milk' and I have just been saying 'no milk until morning' and then just sshing her and saying 'back to sleep'.  First two nights she screamed her wee head off.  After that the NWs decreased from 3-1.  We are still having 1 NW at 4.03am (every night!) but she is settling much easier.  I decided not to get DH to do the NWs as it was causing more trouble than it was worth.  Am hoping a few more nights and she'll be back to normal!

Amazing how easy it is to get into the habit of nursing at night.  I know your LO has  been feeding at night for a while but its amazing what they understand if you were to start saying 'no milk until breakfast'. 

{{{hugs}}}  She's probably finding it tough with the cold turkey as she has been used to feeding for so long and it will take a while to click that milk is no more at night.  I did offer a sippy with water for the first few night but she was so cross she wasn't getting to nurse that it was thrown across the room. 

HTH

[anna*]

The thing is, she's not going to drop these night feeds by herself. And she's not going to be happy when you make that decision either so it seems like some crying is going to be inevitable.

On the plus side, at 22 months she can totally understand what you're telling her. So you can talk up all day that she is a big girl now, there is no nursing at night time now, nursing has to wait until morning. Then when she wakes up in the night I would go in and remind her that there's no nursing at night. You can sit with her and stay with her until she calms down. Yes it may take a long tme. Personally I wouldn't take her out of the crib. Her older sister may have to go and sleep in mummy and daddy's bed if the crying gets too much.

I know it's a different situation because this was bottles not nursing, but here's a real recent thread with a two year old who was having several bottles each night. It's only been a few nights and he's already sleeping through. http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=162466.0

[LucK]

My Lo is 18 months and over Christmas became ill with high fevers on top of teething, so we ended bringing her to bed with us.  She still had a hard time sleeping and asked to nurse, I did let her for 3 or 4 days while she was ill.  After that I stopped because I was afraid she would get used to it.  She screamed when I said no and that she would have to wait until morning.  She wouldn’t let me comfort her either so my DH had to take her away from the room to calm her.  I felt horrible but the next night she didn’t ask to nurse at all.  In your case, it may take longer to get her used to this but which ever way you decide to stop the night nursing make sure you are consistent and make a plan before you start as to what you will do and what your DH can do so you don’t fall back on nursing.  After you tackle this you can try WI/WO.  My LO is now in her own bed waking up once a night but settles on her own.  So we are still working on the NW but it does get better.

[imaayafa]

my son nursed til he was about 20 months and during that time he woke up a lot. it wasn't until i stopped nursing and got through a period where he continued crying when he woke up bc he didn't understand the new routine....we sat with him until he learned a different routine....babies are dependent on routine and associations, so if he associates sleep with boob, you have to give him a different association...but be careful, we ended up patting to sleep and then he could only sleep with that....so we had to go through another round of breaking habit and crying...with my first son we used baby whisperer pick up put down when i stopped breastfeeding (he was up every 2 hours to feed until age 18 mos), i kissed and hugged and explained that he was safe and then laid him down and every time he cried i picked him up again and comforted again, until he fell asleep. first night it took one hour maybe more and pick up every 2 minutes then he fell asleep. he only woke up once and took 15 minutes of pick up put down. the next night it took 15 minutes and he slept through the night. never looked back! was amazing. with second son was much much harder so the personality of the infant/toddler makes a huge difference. if i i remember the bw theories, its easier with a textbook baby. good luck you can do it! it could be difficult for a night or 3 or 7, but then you can start getting your life back and she will sleep better too!