Attachment Parenting Gone Awry

[chibiusa4022]

Help! We've been doing attachment parenting with our son since he was born. He is now 9 1/2 months. He sleeps in his own crib, but has become dependent on nursing to go back to sleep. This was fine until about a month ago when he stopped napping unless he was at the breast and is now taking a good two hours to fall back to sleep at night. I'm 5 months pregnant and can't do this anymore. How can I transition him lovingly to start soothing himself, or am I too late?

[~ Vik ~]

You're never too late!

Have you heard of the gentle removal plan?  Check this thread out:
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=52857.0

Have a read and let us know what you think!  Would this be appropriate for you?  What questions would you have?
Also, do you have a routine?  Could you post it?  It definitely helps to have it to refer to!

Hugs!
Vikki

[chibiusa4022]

Thank you. That article was the guidance I need to get started. Although I do still have one concern. Jeremy, my son, has quite a temper. He doesn't just fuss a little when he doesn't get his way, he goes straight to tightening his entire body and screaming at the top of his lungs. I just hope that this approach is enough to help him relax himself to sleep. Did you have a similar problem?

Our nighttime routine is as follows:
6:30: Dinner
7:00: Story time with Dad
7:15: Bath
7:45-8:30 ish: Nursing to bed and carried to crib (I guess this is where the change will have to be made. I like the soothing words and stroking idea as they fall asleep. Here's hoping we can eventually get to that point after getting rid of the prop.)

[~ Vik ~]

Hi!
We did have the same problem: Dylan was nursed to sleep for all naps, bedtime, and nws. And we were having awful nws, every 45min-1hr at its worst (dylas has eczema, and the itching would wake him up). I found bw when Dylan was about 5mo old (he's almost 8mo now) and I really liked the idea of separating eating and sleeping.
However, the option given in the bw books, pu/pd, wouldn't work for us. Dylan's eczema flares up when he gets upset (or gets hot, or his skin gets irritated, or he has a bath, or you look at him wrong ) so the amount of crying involved made pu/pd inappropriate for us. So I searched and found that thread and decided that GR could work for us. It took awhile, but I don't feed him to sleep for naps or bedtime anymore, although I do still nurse him at nws (which are FAR less frequent now, just once or twice a night, and he eats well so I figure he's hungry).  He fussed some at the beginning, but not too much. I went from feeding him to sleep and lying him in his crib dead asleep, to being able to lay him down drowsy but still awake.
This did work for us, but took a few weeks, and will probably take longer to get rid of nws when I'm ready. Pu/pd seems to work much more quickly from what I've read. You may want to pop over to the pu/pd board to see if that's an option for you. I know your time for fixing this is limited! (congrats on your new lo coming soon )
If you have any questions let me know and I'll answer them as best I can. There's other threads on gentle removal too in the props board, so you might find more answers there too.
Good luck!!
Vikki