Breaking habit of nursing to sleep and night weaning

DS for the most part falls asleep on his own for naps but I nurse him to sleep at bed time. After that he wakes up every two hours and won't go to sleep again until I nurse him. Someone told me to stop the bedtime nursing first by nursing about 30 minutes before bed and then CIO if he won't sleep. Does this sound right? Is there a max amount of time I should let him cry? Should I be checking on him (he seems to get worse if he's ever crying and I check on him and try to leave the room). After that is successful, I was told to wean off the night feedings with the earliest night feeding first. But I've read that you shouldn't do a full on CIO for night weaning (the feeding I do every 2 hours) but that they typically cry for about 20 minutes and then go back to sleep. If anyone has any BTDT advice I would appreciate it.

ETA: DS is 13 months

Message edited 11/13/2013 5:33:05 PM.

Re: Breaking habit of nursing to sleep and night weaning

how old is ds?
dd was nursing to sleep every night and it never bothered either of us...but we opted to do cio for the middle of the night feedings when i knew she didnt need them anymore
dd is almost 9 months and i had to stop bf-ing recently, but she still goes to sleep immediately after her night bottle. maybe its a bad habit, im not sure...but imo its her bedtime routine...bath time, story time and a bottle.
so personally, i wouldnt stop nursing for the last feeding

if you want to do CIO for the middle of the night feedings, i would do that if you think ds is ready.

Message edited 11/13/2013 4:23:59 PM.

Re: Breaking habit of nursing to sleep and night weaning

I'm curious what other have to say here as I've been wondering the same. I nurse to sleep too..

Re: Breaking habit of nursing to sleep and night weaning

Re: Breaking habit of nursing to sleep and night weaning

you dont need to do cio if you're not comfortable with it. you'll have to stop nursing when he wakes at night but there are gentler approaches. i worked with rebecca from parents r talking and my twins went from waking every 2-3 hours to sleeping 11.5 hours straight last night! fm me if you want more details.

Re: Breaking habit of nursing to sleep and night weaning

Breaking habit of nursing to sleep and night weaning

DD didn't sttn consistently until I weaned her at 16 months. I do think not nursing to sleep may help him wake less at night. Maybe nurse earlier like suggested and then come up with a new routine with some books and songs and then put him down awake. I would give a stuffed animal or lovey and put on white noise and that's it. DD was the same, going in just escalated her crying. When I weaned (her sleeping had been a nightmare out of the blue for the two weeks before), I had to let her CIO and she finally sttn. First night was 40 min (45 seems about average), second night was 20 minutes, and the third was just a few. No crying after that. It was hard to figure out how to get her back down on the rare occasion she still woke at night. Eventually I did let her cry and it was about 10 minutes, then stopped for 10 minutes, then cried another 10. She hasn't woken once since then. GL! Thankfully DD never gets too worked up but it sucks those first few nights no matter what.

Re: Breaking habit of nursing to sleep and night weaning

I weaned the middle of the night feedings before the bedtime feeding (they were the first feedings to cut). I didn't do CIO for these, I would go in and pick her up, and rock her, but no boob. On the weekend DH went in instead. Once she realized she wasn't getting the boob, she stopped waking up...took about 1 week.

I didn't wean the bedtime feeding until very last. (We weaned the naptime and morning feedings 1st) She was 25 months by then and I was about 6 weeks pregnant. For this we changed our routine and location. Again, took about a week for her to get it.

Breaking habit of nursing to sleep and night weaning

If you don't want to cry it out at bedtime, here is another method that may help you for middle of the night feedings:
http://drjaygordon.com/attachment/sleeppattern.html
Good luck!

Re: Breaking habit of nursing to sleep and night weaning

I'm having same issues. I do CIO for mid night feedings as pp. He is started to get better, down to one middle night feeding. I'm having issues with naps though. He won't nap unless he nurses to sleep or is in stroller. How did you get day naps?

Re: Breaking habit of nursing to sleep and night weaning

I did not BF, however my DD used to only fall asleep to me rocking her with the bottle. Then she would wake in the middle of the night, looking for me and the bottle. Ped had said since the last thing she remembered before falling asleep was being in my arms, she was probably frightened and confused when she woke up in her crib alone, and also she wanted the bottle bc she hadn't ever learned to fall asleep without out. He said to do CIO at bedtime, and go into soothe in the middle of the night as needed. He made the analogy of teaching a kid how to ride a bike- you give them a push at the start, get them going, but you have to attend to them if they fall down until they don't fall anymore. Good luck!

Re: Breaking habit of nursing to sleep and night weaning

Message edited 11/14/2013 12:59:25 PM.

Re: Breaking habit of nursing to sleep and night weaning

Posted by BlueDiamonds

Posted by MrsDamonSalv7319

I weaned the middle of the night feedings before the bedtime feeding (they were the first feedings to cut). I didn't do CIO for these, I would go in and pick her up, and rock her, but no boob. On the weekend DH went in instead. Once she realized she wasn't getting the boob, she stopped waking up...took about 1 week.

I didn't wean the bedtime feeding until very last. (We weaned the naptime and morning feedings 1st) She was 25 months by then and I was about 6 weeks pregnant. For this we changed our routine and location. Again, took about a week for her to get it.

We did something very similar. Weaned middle of the night feedings first. At 13 months, they do not need to eat in the middle of the night. Then I slowly weaned the other feedings. I left night time until last. I knew it would be the hardest. As I weaned the other feedings, my supply dropped and his time on the boob each feeding shortened. By the time we got to weaning the night time, it was definitely more of a comfort thing because my supply had really dropped.

I am not a huge fan of CIO. Can you have DH or someone else put the baby to bed for about a week without BF?

We developed a new routine for bedtime, which included cuddling time instead of nursing. I did rock him a bit after weaning night time feedings to comfort him. But I wouldn't let him fall asleep in my arms. Now at almost 2, I am the one asking him to cuddle and rock for a minute before bed but he doesn't really want to

Re: Breaking habit of nursing to sleep and night weaning

I just weaned my 18-month old DD from bedtime nursing and early morning nursing. I used to nurse her to sleep, but to slowly transition to not nursing her, I had my hubby give her milk in her bottle before sleeping. Thing is, she's okay drinking from the bottle so long as she doesn't see me. If she sees me around, she'll refuse everything and will only ask to be nursed. I also switched assignments with hubby; I put our two boys to sleep while he put our baby girl to sleep. So then we're good with not nursing for bedtime, but I still had to deal with the 12:00, 3:00 and 5:30 am nursing because we co-sleep DD. I started 'ignoring' DD for the 12 and 3am feedings; initially it didn't go well, she'd cry so loud which is amplified during those times and quite frustrating. I quickly learned though that she'd only "try"/test the waters for less than 5 minutes, and if I don't give in, she stops crying and falls back to sleep. Last hurdle was the early morning nursing. 'switched again with hubby and made them sleep in the adjacent room. So funny how if she wakes up and sees me, she'll say her word for "breast" and start helping herself but during the (switch) times my hubby was with her, one look at him and then she says "milk please" with a sort of resigned voice.