Help!!! I Need to Get My Daughter to Stop Nursing and to Sleep Thru the Night!!!

I'm assuming she's getting pumped milk or whole milk during the day. It doesn't sound like a growth spurt issue since she's been nursing at night for awhile now. I would take the weaning process very slowly with her. Continue nursing when you get home from work and explain that after your "nursies" are going to bed until the next morning. Do you nurse her upon waking in the a.m.? At this age she can understand what you mean but that doesn't mean she won't be MAD about it. If you want to take the advice of others to start or continue cosleeping so you can sleep and she can still BF --fine! But if you (not other around you) truly want to wean her at night she can handle it:) Just consistently react to her nursing tantrum using a method you feel comfortable with and when you have decided you will not nurse at a particular time just stick to it and give her love in an alternative way. She won't be emotionally scarred! She simply has a very definite association between sleeping and BF and it will take time to weaken that association if that is what you want to do. Try Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution for ideas. You may need to drop one night feed at a time if she is nursing more than once after she initially goes down. Good luck!

If you're not single, I would enlist the help of your husband or boyfriend for the weaning and have them feed your daughter milk. For nighttime, I would create a bedtime routine like changing, drinking some milk , brush teeth, reading, bed every night. I also used the crying it out method. However, if they were still crying hysterically after 10 minutes then I would go in and put my hand on them. I would say only one time "It's nighttime", do not pick him up, or smile or communicate. Then eventually they settled down and fell asleep. I VERRRY slowly picked up my hand and left the room. Whatever you decide to do just stick to it every time. I would also make sure that she's eating enough and not sleeping too much during the day.

I sympathize with you because my son is two and a half and I only solved this problem for recently! I don't know what your situation is, but for me, because he had been nursing every hour on the hour I just brought him to bed with me. I know you will get a wide variety of responses to this so I can only tell you what I did, and I'm really happy with it. Only you can decide what is the best for you and your family but if anything I can say will help, I'm glad!! This is a miserable situation and I know it seems like there is no way out of it.

A lot of the reason I would always say yes to nursing at night was out of guilt for being at work. I felt I must be 100% available to him at that time since I wasn't during the day. And you can, but it doesn't have to be nursing. At first I set times, of when I was willing to nurse and when I wasn't. During the times I would not nurse him, I was very comforting to him, "I would explain mommy loves you and sleep is good for you" and rub his back, because yes, he was MAD! I did still have him in bed with me because for me personally, that was not a problem, as long as he slept and let me sleep! For you it might be different. After about 4 days, I noticed that he would still wake up wanting to nurse, but when I said no he did not fuss with the same intensity. Just a little bit and then he'd roll back to sleep. Then after another couple of days, it got worse again, but the key to this is to stick to it. And eventually to my amazement, he would not wake up asking to nurse, he would just sleep. I truly had reached a point where I thought that would never happen.

The trick really is to push through during those moments, she is upset, knowing you are doing something that will be of benefit to both of you. I feel so much more engaged and patient. Definitely healthier and happier getting more sleep. It really does feel like a different life.

My pedi gave me an pamphlet with an excerpt from Ferber's book and wanted me to try it. I wasn't comfortable doing it that way and she said "You know your way will take longer, right?" I said yes, and that I was ok with that. I am sure there will be many people who offer the Ferber method and other ways that are happy with their choice too. You will have to choose what is best for you. It could be one those, my method, or something in between. Whatever your approach, just keep your goals in mind and choose something that feels right to you and I promise if you stick to it, it will WORK. For us, it took about a month to really be sleeping through the night, and there were moments I was so close to giving up but it did happen. Good luck to you, I know where you are at and it is a really frustrating place to me and can seem like there is no hope other than for her to grow out of this. For us, it did work though and I would love to see you come back and tell us you found something that worked.

PS--Just came back to add-my kid associated my breasts with sleep SO much that he referred to them as "Naps", LOL.So when he'd wake up, sometimes I'd say "Naps are ni-night" so he knew- they are sleeping and so should you!! ;)

You are gone all day... night nursing is how most toddlers will replenish the lack of breastfeeding nutrients either due to being distracted all day or not having Mommy around. It is normal behavior for a breastfed toddler and will stay that way until almost 2 y/o.

She's old enough to just nurse and not wake you up. Just bed-share and don't wear a shirt. Seems like a win-win to me. She gets to nurse as she needs to and you get to sleep.

Weaning for me didn't take very long and was not very hard...I just stopped feeding her at night and then started substituting one bottle a day for a nursing session until she was only taking bottles - when she woke up she didn't need to eat, she had had enough food/formula during the day to hold her over. I just had to figure that out. Although, since you are breastfeeding, and she is over 1, she will not be taking a bottle, but she can take a sippy with milk in it. As for nights, just make sure she is getting enough milk supply and solids...I would stop feeding her at night before I would try to wean her after work. Then gradually try to get her to take the sippy cup or something else with milk in it so she is still getting what she wants, but doesn't have to be from you. I also co-sleep because I didn't want to do CIO and I didn't have enough patience for other methods in the middle of the night - she sleeps so well when I am with her and doesn't wake up till morning. I have also read the you can try feeding the baby less and less during the night - so if you nurse her for 15 mins, try 10, 5, etc...some people would switch to a bottle and then fill it with half milk/half water and then keep diluting it so the baby gets less and less milk and it's not worth waking up for....Good luck!!!

I think you're dealing with two different issues - you might find it less stressful to separate them. First, you want your child to sleep through the night. Second, you're thinking about weaning. It is not necessary to wean if you want her to sleep. It does however, take you picking a method to get her to sleep (no nursing involved). There's a million methods of sleep training. With my kids, ultimately I'd let them cry it out. They never held a grudge, they don't remember the next morning. They're just happy to see you (and you're happy to see them because you SLEPT :). Yes it was hard, but we all survived and were better off for it. I'm not personally a fan of co-sleeping. I'm amazed when people don't wake up to their child nursing on them, because I can't imagine it NOT waking me up. For me, waking up with my child nursing on me ever hour doesn't sound much better than me nursing in a chair in their room every hour. If you want to wean, 15 months of nursing is wonderful. However, you deserve sleep, so I would tackle the sleep issue first. I also thought I'd mention that I'd deal with her wanting Mom in the middle of the night now, before she's climbing out of her crib and she's running into your room all night long. (I always sleep train before then!)

May you get many good nights sleep in 2011!

Well she is young... and I don't know if this will work... but for my friends (who's kids were already 2 years old), what they did was they put Band-Aids on their nipples and told their Toddler that "Mommy's milk is broken..." or, "Mommy has a boo-boo...." and they said that worked for them. They kept reapplying Band-Aids until their child totally 'forgot' about nursing.

Also, 15 months old is a Growth-spurt time in a child. Thus, they need increased intake.... to keep pace with them.

Does your child drink whole milk, yet? If so, give her a sippy cup or bottle of milk.

Kids this age, do not necessarily sleep through the night, yet.
But they need to learn to self-soothe, too.

Is she also eating fine throughout the day? Getting enough intake????
Do you nurse her before bed?

Or, have your Husband do night time duty. Change up the 'routine.'

She is probably also wanting 'you' for soothing and comfort. Thus, being at your breasts....

Does she ACTUALLY nurse when she wakes in the middle of the night, or just uses your breasts as a pacifier???? If she is actually 'drinking', then she is probably hungry.

I don''t know, but each baby/kid is different.
I had my kids self-wean. My daughter did so at about 2.5 years old. And my son at about 1 year old.
BUT... that did not mean, once they weaned, that they slept all night.
They started sleeping all night, from about 2-3 years old. Naturally.

Or, maybe ask a Lactation Consultant, about weaning...