Sweet dreams: teaching babies to fall asleep on their own

guys, i'm not disagreeing with anyone, just pointing out facts about my situation. the reference to tears alludes to crying it out. i may not use that method but no matter what, sleep training is never easy.

my problem is simple with reference to THIS post. as i said to tara, it's not about weaning or my milk supply. it's about teaching kids to fall asleep on their own. plain and simple.

moma2mingbu - when he wakes up in the middle of the night he is nursed back to sleep.

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You did say you're not a cry-it-out kind of person, so I'll just mention one thing about it before my main comment. For us, the baby whisperer method was a total nightmare of endless crying. Next we tried cry-it-out and it was much less painful for everybody. The entire training took three nights and since then 90% of the time our 10 month old boy goes to sleep on his own and sleeps for 8-10 hours, with wakeups only in emergencies (superfull diaper, etc). We followed the "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" book.

There are some general messages in that book that are relevant to everyone, no matter what sleep training method they follow. The most important one is this:

Sleep is really REALLY important for happiness and for health, both for the baby and for you. If neither of you are getting enough sleep, you'll both be crabby. If "comforting" the kid is keeping them up, then that could be making them miserable during the day. It is worth going through the pain of sleep training -- whichever method you choose -- so you can both get the rest you need to have wonderful times together.

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Hmm, well, I'll try to bring this back to topic.

I'm big on the breastfeeding, but we weaned by mutual decision at 15 months because I was 5 months pregnant and my supply took a major beating. Like you, I had been nursing to sleep. I think it is great that you are starting to think about this before you hit 12 months if that is your target for weaning.

We learned three things. First, get lots of partner help. My husband does the whole night time routine now. We actually had an easier time transitioning night time as it became daddy time. He also took all night waking when we were trying to stop nursing to sleep (now we share).

Second, work on the routines well before you wean (we didn't). Our problem was (and is) naps. I never had a good nap routine before stopping nursing. We always nursed to sleep. Then somehow we wound up driving her to nap, and now more than a year later we still do. If she hasn't fallen asleep by a certain time we go for a drive. She actually transitions back into the house fine. I have a lot of people say "oh, my child won't stay asleep when I carry him/her back in" and my daughter used to be like that too, but if it is actually her naptime she will stay asleep. However, I can't really say that this is the best solution. I wish I'd had a better nap routine before I weaned.

Third, we learned to try everything. We never would have said "one day we'll be driving our toddler to nap every day" but it does more or less work. A woman in my playgroup used to walk around with her son on her shoulder for the entire two hours he napped. She'd vacuum and do household tasks, all while carrying him. Our car thing seemed really good to me after I heard that!

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Folks, please keep in mind that nursing is not an "all or nothing" proposition. Oliver has gradually decreased the number of times a day he wants to nurse and my supply is decreasing as a result, probably about the same way Charlene's is since our little guys are about the same age (and not nearly so little anymore!), but that's just a guess on my part. I am not with my son all day, but he's in a campus center and I do see him to nurse at mid-day.

Deep breaths everyone!

Thanks for posting this Charlene. I was thinking the same things this past week and just decided to take the plunge a few days before you did.

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About nursing back to sleep in the middle of the night...we were doing that too. In an effort to get longer sleep cycles from Oliver I started making his dad go in if it had been less than three hours since he nursed. We're now up to four hours -- if it's been less than that, he gets Dad instead of me. Dad tries patting him back to sleep, or picks him up if he's very upset. They rock a bit (I think...I'm not there!) if necessary.

Slowly he has figured out that if he sees Dad, he's not going to eat and he does go back to sleep.

And he is sleeping longer stretches at night.

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I agree with many of the other posters, this just kind of takes patience and a lot of trial and error. What worked for us was patting Margot's back. We lay her in her crib after a bit of snuggle, and then pat her back and hum to her. When we were in the thick of trying to find something to help her get to sleep (we are not a cry it out kind of crowd) I would have laughed in someone's face for recommending a pat on the back... but it works for us. Good Luck and keep us posted

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OK, so I'll throw it out there that we read Dr. Ferber's book "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems" and found it to be excellent. It is not a 'cry it out' method, as those who have not read it may think from common talk about his technique. I *highly* recommend getting a copy and diving right in to the chapter entitled "Associations with Falling Asleep." Clearly, you already know the situation you have created, and you recognize that it is now time for your son to learn to fall alseep by himself, and the book offers some good suggestions to get to that end. Plus, the other topics it covers such as sleep walking and night terrors are quite fascinating!

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MELISSA THE BLOGGER--emailed me and informed the star problem was an accident--accidently hit the wrong button, so it was not because she was mad about what I wrote. And it was fixed. Thanks for the clarification Melissa!

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you said: He'll wait FOUR HOURS for me. Then when I nurse him - he's fast asleep within 1 minute.

I LOVE IT...I have the same situation here!

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When my oldest was 6 months his pediatrician recommended the Ferber book to me. (It was the trendy book at the time) I read it. It was well written and seemed to make lots of sense. I tried it for 1/2 an hour and vowed to never listen to anyone over my own instincts again. My instincts told me that a distressed baby is not what I wanted, so I continued to nurse my baby to sleep. Eventually he fell asleep on his own. Eventually he weaned. Today my first is 3 inches taller than me and if I could shrink him down to one year old and carry him around all day again I would. I'd nurse him to sleep too, and there would nothing so important that I couldn't be home to do it. It just goes so fast, and you gain nothing by forcing the issue, except a disillusioned and sad baby. That is my point, you don't know because you haven't been there. Saying "I planned on nursing my baby for one year." seems so arbitrary to me, when it ia apparant that you have a baby that still needs to nurse. One day you will wonder why you were in such a hurry to get it over with.

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clickmom,

why do you assume i don't know and that i haven't been there? with all due respect, please take a moment to read my posts for blogging baby or crazedparent before leaving a statement like that. this one might be particularly useful:

http://www.bloggingbaby.com/2006/02/22/blogging-baby-book-nursing-and-the-mom-fix/

and i'm sorry. a 9-month-old baby won't be disillusioned. cranky maybe, but not disillusioned.

thanks.
charlene

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mine falls asleep beautifully more or less on her own but when she wakes at 4am to feed she wont sleep again. I usually have to leave the room and sleep in the tatami room!! She screams and smacks her daddys face and then falls asleep almost instantly. if I stay in the room she stays awake for HOURS!
we dont have a seperate room that she can sleep in yet. soon soon soon we move!

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Hi Charlene,

I wish I had some advice for you, but I'm in the same boat. My little girl nurses to sleep every night. I've finally gotten in the habit of cutting her off before she's really zonked then burping her, kissing her head and laying her down. She fusses for about 45 seconds, then is sound asleep.

My real problem is nap time. There seems to be no getting her to nap without nursing through it. I tried letting her "fuss it out" one afternoon and nearly had a nervous breakdown.

This post isn't really helpful. I guess I just wanted you to know that there are other mothers out there in the same situation...and we're cheering for you!

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My son Aidan is almost a year old and I am having a similar problem. My husband and I have finally been able to get him into a routine that lets him get to sleep mostly on his own at night but I can't get him to do the same for naps.

It is frustrating to have a child fight sleep that they need and I have a very hard time letting him cry. Not that "crying to sleep" works for Aidan. In fact all it seems to do is get him riled up. I also don't think that the bath, bottle, story and music is viable during the day either.

One thing I would recommend for getting Q. to sleep is to have some music or "white noise" on in the room, in the dark, while you rock him mostly (or all the way) to sleep. The other thing I would suggest (though I may start another firestorm) is putting him on his tummy to sleep. This was one thing that really helped Aidan. He spreads out his arms and feels his way to sleep at night. Since Q. is almsot a year he shouldn't have any problems with rolling over if he doesn't like it.

Hope some of this helps.

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My son never nursed to sleep, but he did have to nurse before every nap and bedtime. I had to wean him when I got pregnant again, and I was having a very hard time with the pre-sleeping nursing sessions.

I found that a bottle of warm water really helped. The funniest part was that he had been off the bottle for 6 months when I reintroduced it! At first, he rejected it, but when I explained that mommy had no more milk, he was willing to take it. After a few weeks of the bottle, we switched to a sippy cup of warm water, and now he is able to go to sleep with nothing.

I know your post is not so much about weaning but about getting your son to sleep on his own, but for him these are probably two separate issues and you may need to address each one separately. Good luck!

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