How, oh how, do you night wean a baby???????? Here's my problem, Brooke goes down to bed totally awake and puts herself to sleep. This is absoultely NO problem for us. It's a skill that she has learned and that she does really well with. HOWEVER, every single morning she seems to end up in our bed. The problem is that I don't even know how she gets there so it's not like I can really even fix it.
Her nighttime routine, as of now, is that she goes down around 7:30 (sometimes even earlier) and she religiously wakes up around 11 or 11:30 wanting to eat. Now, I know that she probably doesn't NEED to eat, but I always feed her because 1, I'm hoping to "fuel" her up for a good night's rest (which definitely is NOT working) and 2, it's easier. John's not home to help me let her cry-it-out so it's hard for me to be consistent. I find this particular feeding hard to eliminate because I feel like it's not out of the realm of possibility for her to be hungry. However, I know that a baby her age doesn't require a nighttime feeding.
I would be fine if Brooke only woke up at 11 for that feeding, but now she's waking up again.. At lately it's been no later than 2 O'Clock. Isn't that ridiculous? And THAT is a good night. There have been some nights recently where she has woken up around 12:30 or 1. I've tried feeding her and putting her back down at this time of the night but 100 percent of the time she'll end back up in her bed.
I have a couple of thoughts on this. First of all, I'm wondering if I go get her in the middle of the night even if she's NOT crying. Maybe part of me is worrying about her and I just instintually go to get her. Just a thought. Or, maybe she screams and because I've just picked her and brought her into our room for the last year, I'm immune to it. I JUST DON'T KNOW! I've thought about locking my bedroom door because I figured I would have to make a much more conscience effort to get out of my room that way. I just don't have the answers to this.
There are also mornings where I wake up and find Brooke "grazing" at the breast. It's like she's been sitting there for hours using me as a pacifier. I would put a stop to that... I really would, but I'm not even awake to recognize that she's doing it.
The only way I can think of fixing this is having John take a few extra nights off and for us to fight tooth and nail for Brooke to remain in her crib. That's much easier said than done so I don't know what to do.
All I know is that Brooke is eating through the night MORE SO than she ever, ever did as a newborn and more than she did even a few months ago. At this rate.. I'm pretty sure that she'll be nursing until she goes off to college. LOL! Does anyone know how I can fix this??????
1 comment:
Hmmm...that's a tough one. When we did that with Marissa, it was ALLLLL on Dan. We started with naptime though, but then again, we had a lot more issues to fight against (or so I thought - it went much easier than expected!) How is she with naptime? Does she sleep on her own in her crib? I understand how you don't even know what happened in the night. You probably SHOULD lock your door! Or hers, lol. With Dan taking all night-time wakings, it only took a few days til she didn't even bother to wake up anymore. If she doesn't get some exciting stuff (NURSING!!!) she's more likely to not wake up in the first place. Good luck!
Post a Comment