Hi Inoella, yes, we've had success although it took a very long time and persistence (and mentally preparedness on my part). My biggest piece of advice to you would be to make sure you’re 100% mentally ready to do this. In my case, until that happened, I wasn't able to be consistent at night and the inconsistency worked against me in the end making things harder. So I would DEFINITELY wait to even start with the night weaning until you know you're ready. Also, is your LO able to put herself to sleep or do you nurse to sleep at BT, at all NW, and at naptimes? If she has a nurse-to-sleep association, your task is harder and you’ll have to decide whether you want to break all habits in one shot or do things gradually. Kira had a nurse-to-sleep association until she was 9/10 months old when I used PU/PD to teach her independent sleep. I chose to do things gradually one at a time because Kira is a very Touchy child and I wasn’t mentally prepared to night wean fully at 10 months.
Once you're ready, you cannot nurse at night no matter what. If you nurse her sometimes, she doesn't understand why you're not nursing when you refuse. If you stop nursing entirely at night and are consistent, she'll get the message that nursing isn't going to happen if it’s sleepy time and she'll eventually stop expecting/demanding it. When she wakes, you'll have to use PD to settle her back to sleep. In my case, the first few nights I actually held Kira while she cried for a long time. I put her back in her crib once she calmed down some; then I let her hold my hand and she eventually went back to sleep. Now I'm weaning the hand holding.
I would definitely recruit DH's help - night weaning is hard enough as it is not only because you're already exhausted (and will get even moreso, as you'll have a few very long nights before you see success) but also because it’s such a strong instinct to want to nurse your baby when she asks for you. Plus, as you've experienced, when YOU try to settle her without nursing, she knows you're holding out and so she gets furious upset. With DH, she knows there's no way he'll be nursing her so she settles much quicker. I realize your DH works long hours but see if he's willing to help out, maybe over a long weekend. Parenting is hard, and it's not fair for just one parent to do all the hard work. In my case, I'm the one who works fulltime, DH is the stay at home parent, yet I was the one handling all NW's until Kira was a year old (mainly because I got into the habit of nursing to sleep at night). I finally convinced DH to help me by suggesting that we split nights into two shifts - he handled all NW's between 10-2 and I took the shift from 2-6. This felt fair to us (and made things a thousand times more manageable for me!).
Once I was mentally committed and had DH's help, things started to improve. The other thing I know has helped a lot was getting Kira to eat a lot more during the day. It was a gradual process. I think there were a few nights that Kira was actually hungry at night, and those were rough nights for all of us. But then she started eating more during the day and sleeping much better at night.
If you’re worried about your LO being hungry at night you can offer a bottle. My guess is she’ll refuse the bottle from you because what she really wants is the comfort of nursing. If hunger were her problem, she’d accept the bottle. So offering the bottle will at least give you the peace of mind that she isn’t hungry, which might make things easier for you psychologically. But if you do offer a bottle at night, just know you’ll eventually have to wean her off the bottle too. I would just stop feeding at night altogether. I noticed that once I stopped feeding Kira at night, she started eating better during the day and this seemed to help her sleep at night. But I couldn’t get Kira to eat more during the day UNTIL I stopped feeding her at night. I don't think there's anything wrong with offering her a sippy cup of water. DH did this with Kira a few times, sometimes she took a drink, sometimes not.
Anyway, this is just from my own experience, but I HTH. I know it’s really hard, but things will get better.
Sending hugs. Let me know how you get along!
