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How to get into paediatric nursing?

How can I get my 14-month-old son to go to sleep without nursing?

  • LactationFilter: help me decouple nursing and going to sleep for my almost-14-month-old son. Related: Help me keep my sanity! I have an almost-14-moth-old son who is a bright, happy, wonderful child. We've been breastfeeding and he's turned out to be a champion nurser. He goes to daycare three days a week (will go to five days a week in a couple of weeks) and currently does not take a bottle at all (he gets regular milk in a sippy cup). At home he currently nurses only in conjunction with going to sleep (either down for his one nap a day or going to bed at night, and also if he wakes up overnight). And therein lies the problem. My husband is unable to get him down to sleep at all. We tried tonight: I went grocery shopping after his bath and my husband tried to do the usual books and winding down bedtime routine. Our son freaked out, screaming until he was coughing and seemed about to vomit. When I got home I tried to sit and rock with him but not nurse and we went down the same path. I eventually nursed him and he was out cold in five minutes. He currently sleeps from about 6 pm to 6 am, but he gets up 1-2 times a night. When I hear him stir I first try to let him settle himself, which has maybe a 25% success rate. I then have been trying to soothe him without picking him up - I usually rub his back and hum softly. That works sometimes, but is not foolproof. Otherwise, I pick him up and nurse him, which almost always works. The further rub is that he naps at daycare without nursing. They've told me that when he's tired they'll encourage him to lie down and will rub his back to help him fall asleep. We've also had occasional visits from grandmothers and occasionally (once every month or two) use babysitters. They've indicated some fussiness when going to sleep, but also claim that he gets though it fairly quickly. I think he was still taking a bottle the last time we had anyone else attempt it, though. I have friends with young kids who report the kids almost self-weaning: that is to say, they seem to lose interest in nursing. I have been hoping that would be the case for him, but he doesn't seem to want to drop it in the context of going to sleep. I feel like the solution is probably a cry-it-out kind of thing, but I would really appreciate any other advice or thoughts. To hear him get to the coughing/gagging point is really awful and I just feel like it's not good for him. At the same time, I would dearly love to have a bedtime routine that did not depend on me, and am also interested in stopping nursing before much longer (and as a side effect of that, would be ever so grateful to get a full night of sleep). In any case, in March I have a couple of out-of-town overnights planned and do not intend to pump, so I would expect that to be the end of my supply. Anyway, is there a way I can transition out of the dependency between sleep and nursing? Any advice, tips, thoughts? Or can you at least reassure me I'm not traumatizing him for life? I'm mostly joking about the last point, but it was a rough night around here :( A couple of more details: We have a good bedtime routine of dinner, bath, playtime/books and then nursing. The 6 pm bedtime might seem early, but we get up early around here and he's usually awake by 5:30 or 6 am (which actually works for us, so we're fine with it). I also realize that many children in the world nurse well beyond a year and that there are benefits to doing so, but I am at the point where I would like to be done with it.

  • Answer:

    I bf my kid to go to sleep until he was 2.5. He also went down sans boob at daycare. Dad was able to put him to bed with a bottle but it was a huge to-do. So I feel you. Question 1 - is he in a crib or cosleeping? Can husband do what you're doing with a bottle (try different brands?) Or boobie like sippy cup? (Nuby brand.) And a suggestion - do NOT do this before he starts 5 day a week daycare. Right now he gets naptime boobies 4/7 week and nighttime boobies 7 nights a week. To reduce this to 0 at the same time (ish) is going to be harder. I would wait, let your body (and him) adjust to 5 day a week care and only nighttime boobies. As far as you and your boobs... IMHO (and remember, I went for 30-something months!), leaving town is the best was to emotionally deal with it. (Bring a hand pump tho... I was surprised to get engorged and needed some relief.) But by leaving town, the guilt/temptation was gone for all parties involved. When I came back 4 or so days later, I wore a bra to bed and gently told him no more boobies. It took a few nights and he just stopped asking. A few more weeks and he stopped grabbing. (Now nearly a year later if he sees me undressing he'll tell me how much he used to like boobies.) But there was never any tears or fight. Emotionally it was a good thing for me to stop. I got my evenings back. I forgot what an evening was like. Books to recommend: Your Nursing Toddler No Cry Sleep Solution Good luck!

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I very firmly believe that the nursing relationship is just like any other relationship in that there are TWO people involved in it who both have needs to be met. Of course the baby is the needier partner, but try not to feel guilty for doing something that is good for you too!

chiababe

PS, my kid never showed any interest in self-weaning. Remember that boobies, at toddler age, are less about nutrition and more about attachment. He wants you and that good feeling.

k8t

Also, do take the long view: There are no 5-year-olds who still nurse to sleep, and this too shall pass. I'd bet it doesn't last to the end of this year. My younger kid kicked me out of his bed when he was 4: "Mommy, you go to the big bed now. I want to sleep." I was relieved, but there was a lot of sadness in there too. (Not bf'ing at the time, I just liked cuddling him to sleep because I'd missed him over the day.)

wenat

One of my friends went to a hotel in town for two nights. She was home during the day, just went to the hotel at night, so she wasn't in the house at all. Also she ordered room service and a massage. I think part 2 is the key part of this plan.

Eyebrows McGee

I have a few suggestions. First, what you really want to do is break him of the habit of falling asleep on the breast. So, you can still nurse him at bed time, but just as he's dozing off, use your finger to break his grip. He'll probably lodge a protest. Try to soothe him without going back to nursing, but if you have to nurse again to calm him down, go ahead. This time, too, get him off the breast before he's right out asleep. It might be a bit of a battle, but eventually you should be able to get him to feel comfortable going to sleep in your arms, but not on the breast. I did this with my daughter and I think it probably took a couple weeks. A couple long, terrible weeks. I tried really hard not to turn it into a battle, and to not let her get totally worked up when I took her off the breast. Basically, you kind of want him at the point where he's awake enough to notice he's no longer nursing, but too sleepy to protest. I wasn't looking to wean when I did this, just to get her to be able to fall asleep without nursing, so that when she woke in the night she could self-soothe without me. (Like everything, it was a mixed success.) We took a bath together every evening, and so I just shifted the evening nursing to the bath. At that point (she was the same age as your son) the only time she nursed was in the bath. So there was a strong situational relationship. When I'd decided I was ready to wean, I just didn't get in the bath with her one night. She looked kind of puzzled, but honestly made no fuss at all. The next night she had a babysitter (she never had a problem going to sleep for a sitter) and the third night everything was fine. It remains the only parenting thing that ever went easy for me. So, that's my second suggestion: it doesn't have to be the bath, but if you aren't ready to wean immediately, tie nursing to a really specific time and place away from his bedroom and falling asleep. The third suggestion is to go with what works. Sounds like babysitters get him to sleep. You don't have to leave the house for the whole night, you could just hire a sitter for bed time duty every night for a week, say. Then, maybe your husband could take over bed time for another couple weeks. Just long enough to really interrupt the routine, and develop new habits.

looli

Sounds like you might be interested in reading over AskMoxie's theory of "tension increasers" and the comments on those posts (here's http://www.askmoxie.org/2011/01/tension-increasers.html and here's http://www.askmoxie.org/2006/06/babies_and_cio.html) for some ideas how to handle this: "I think there are a minimum of two kinds of people, hence babies: Those who release tension by crying, and those who increase tension by crying. Which is why some babies seem to need to cry to be able to fall asleep, while others escalate more and more if you let them cry at all." You could also look through her posts tagged "http://www.askmoxie.org/sleep/" and "http://www.askmoxie.org/weaning/". I like her advice, it's gentle and thoughtful, and often provides insight I hadn't considered before. The way we've done this with our kids is that my husband handles bedtimes - you're already thinking on that track - as well as letting him try to settle himself and not responding with nursing immediately. The advice above is stuff we've done as well - making the last nursing session earlier, before bathtime; nursing until drowsy and then unlatching and rocking to sleep, or handing off to daddy to put to sleep. And yes, bring a pump while you go away overnight - don't be surprised if your breasts get engorged, even though you might think you're close to drying up/weaning; this same thing happened to me and it was painful - all I could do was take hot showers and try to hand express to relieve the pressure, which was awkward and only partly worked!

flex

I've really wanted to try to do not what's best for me, but what's best for him What's best for you is often what's best for him -- wait, did that come out right? In other words: it's OK to put yourself first, because you need to take care of yourself as much as you need to take care of him. Taking care of yourself is taking care of him.

incessant

We've had some luck with changing routines when ours has had a cold. Something where the routine is already off-kilter seems to allow us to make changes. The most recent was "no bottles during night wakeups." But, ours is only 1 and no longer breastfed so YMMV.

amanda

I just wanted to thank everyone again for the responses. I'm really grateful for the advice and just the general support from the random internet folks :) I think I see what the path needs to be. I'll talk to my husband tonight and get him on board with some changes to our routine, and we'll probably also eventually plan for me to be out of the house in the evenings to give him a chance to get bedtimes without me working. And I think "this too shall pass" is right...and then we'll be on to the next toddler adventure! And I'll be back to ask for more advice :)

handful of rain

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