#night weaning

[mamaisoversharing]

I just had to vent. This lady who was the seller at this dumb jewelry party I went to tonight was talking about how a little boy she watches basically doesn't eat while she has him because he just nurses all night long. And she said he's 7 months so he shouldn't even be nursing at all (I think she meant at night but honestly I don't know) ... I could hardly stop myself from rolling my eyes at her. I said, yeah my daughter nurses at least once or twice at night if not more. She was like, "I keep telling his mom he's going to be malnourished if she doesn't stop nursing him at night." All this was AFTER she was saying how big he is... 🤦

Like, it's fine if people want to night wean. That's up to them! But reverse cycling and continuing to nurse at night are still perfectly fine, and obviously he's not starving to death.

Hey, don't act like you know what the hell you are talking about if you don't. And by the way, no I won't host a stupid party.

[girlgermanified]

Baby's sleep / night weaning update

It has been going well (knock on wood). Little one sleeps from 9:00 pm till 06:00 am. Not through the night yet. He still wakes up a few times

BUT

he has been able to settle himself to sleep before he wakes up again 1 or 2 hours later.

Then I will feed him water and he’ll fall back to sleep right after I pat him.

He wakes up again at 2 or 3 am and joins us in bed. (He sleeps in his crib with one side removed, placed next to my side of our bed)

In other words, after 2 months of night weaning (tears and all), he has stopped searching / screaming for milk and will settle back to sleep with just plain water.

Since a week ago, we started changing the bedtime routine a little bit.

We used to start with a bedtime story followed by kisses for mummy and daddy then finally nursing to sleep.

But, little one wanted to nurse first and then read a book followed by kisses.

We just followed his cues and this has been our bedtime routine now.

Basically, he has been “sleeping without nursing” for almost a week now.

I hope to take away the nursing before bedtime story but one thing at a time first. Baby E has been so good at sleeping without being on the boobs! So proud of him!

He is teething again with lots of drools and picky eating. When is this child NOT teething.

So that also means that he has been wanting to nurse a lot more during he day.

Which is ok with me because I have been super tired and unmotivated for the past few days since I got my period.

I could just chill and nurse while he gets to relieve his teething pain.

So win-win!

Next step will be to encourage him to stay in his crib all the way.

[girlgermanified]

Night 3

Here we go:

Slept: 7:30 pm

At around 8:45 pm, I heard him crying for 10 secs before falling back to sleep again.

First wake up: 10:00

Second wake up: 11:08

Nursed him at third wake up (1:30 am) because little guy was up and looked like he wasn't gonna go to sleep unless I feed him.

[girlgermanified]

Night 2

He went to dreamland at around 7:30 pm and I am just curious to see if he sleeps for 4 hours straight again.

Based on previous experiences, I don’t think so.

I hope the night will be calm and smooth for us.

Update

▪️first wake-up

Time: 8.43 pm

hard /easy to settle: easy (5 mins)

▪️second wake-up

Time: 9:51 pm

hard /easy to settle: cried for 2-3 mins then trailed off after 5 mins

▪️third wake-up:1

Time: 11:05 pm

hard /easy to settle: 10 mins of rocking and placed back to crib

▪️fourth wake-up

Time: 11:55 pm

hard /easy to settle: hard. Took 30 mins of rocking and slid him off to bed

▪️fifth(!) wake-up

Time: 1:30 am

hard /easy to settle: hard. Took 30 mins of patting as he kept waking up. he was restlsss and fidgety during sleep. Gave him a few sips of water then he fell asleep.

▪️sixth(!) wake-up

Time: 3:00 am

hard /easy to settle: easy. i decided to nurse him as it was already more than the 6 hrs i intended to not nurse,

▪️seventh(!) wake-up

Time: 5:30 am

hard /easy to settle: easy. he was nursed until 6 then i brought him upstairs for breakfast 

[girlgermanified]

I really really want to finish my Aussie blog post for my own remembrance but baby's molars are almost cutting through so he is super cranky and clingy. I just finished a warm cup of coffee. Warm! That's a first! In a while. Well at least little one has been coping well with not nursing from bedtime onwards to up to 6 hours max. It has been tiring but I am very confident it's good for him and me, in the long run.

[watchingmylittlemonkeygrow]

Night 6 in night weaning/night 3 of no nursing:

Evelynn had a very rough night last night! I feel like it might have been completely unrelated to the weaning but I'm honestly not sure. The first time she woke up was perfect because she went back to sleep in less then a minute, stayed asleep through me walking away and stayed asleep for hours before waking up again. The second time she woke up.... She woke up at 5am and just kept crying on and off. Didn't really ask to be fed, didn't want to be held, didn't want to lay down, would toss and turn when we rubbed her back. We took her pj's off in case she was too hot, changed her diaper even gave her some Motrin in case she was hurting... Nothing was working. 3 hours later we finally decided to put her in the car and go for a drive. It took about 2 minutes for her to fall asleep. It was definitely a rough night for all of us and have no idea what was wrong for her but I just hope that tonight we can all sleep more than a few hours!

[watchingmylittlemonkeygrow]

Night 5 in night weaning/night 2 of no nursing:

Last night went so much better! There was no crying only fussing. She let me pick her up and didn't push me away at all. I don't know if it was the pillow that we put in her crib, the music that we had playing or just that she's getting used to all of it but it only took seconds for her to fall asleep again. And she didn't wake up when we got back into bed!

[watchingmylittlemonkeygrow]

We are going to bed with lullabies playing on loud to see if will help with her not wake up when the bed creaks while we're trying to get back in bed