my DD is 11 months old and major booby girl. she co-sleeps and from about a month old and has always had FREQUENT access to the boob overnight to get back to sleep-- like 2 -3 hourly! but i am getting to the point where i dont want her to be waking up so much. i still want to co-sleep but i kinda want to give bfeeding up now! for the last couple of night she has woken up and i have patted her back to sleep but this is taking 2 hours of on and off crying before she goes back to sleep. she will go quiet and close her eyes for about 10 mins then start herself up again. is this normal? it is getting really frustrating! and it just seems easier to booby her back to sleep. any suggestions?
Gee, I don't know Hollo. It sounds like she associates booby with sleep, particularly if you are close-by. I'm no expert, but you probably have a choice to make...
I would suspect that if you're co-sleeping she won't understand why she can't have the boob - it has always been part of her sleeping experience, KWIM? (We are in a similar position here - we don't co-sleep, but Natalie wakes several times a night and is very hard to settle without the boob. I reckon she has the same association.)
I believe, though I could be wrong, that the choice for us is to either keep up with the booby, or we stop feeding at night altogether. JMO, but it seems to me it'd be pretty confusing for a baby to *sometimes* get fed when they wake at night and sometimes not? As I said, I'm certainly no expert, but if I were a baby (LOL) I think that's how I'd consider it. HTH, and I hope you and your DD work out something that suits you both soon.
This was happening to me to and it was so frustrating. Abbey was waking at least 4 times a night and would only bf back to sleep (we cosleep too). She didn't want to bf during the day either. When she was about 12months I ended up with a huge sore on one boob from her lazy night time attachment. I gritted my teeth till it healed but when it came back when she was 14.5 months, I had had enough. I had also just found out I was pg a couple of weeks beforehand and the constant night waking was driving me batty.
One night I put her in with DF for the night. He said she woke a couple of times but settled well. The next night, back in with me she woke twice but settled without bf, and that was the end for us. Now she starts the night in her cot, slepps between 5-8 hours then comes in with us for a few more hours, so genrally only 1 wakeup during the night. She has been sick with a cold the last 2 nights so is waking more often but still doesn't ask for boob.
It might not be as easy as that for you, it might take a few days, but if you do want to stop bf and you can put her in with someone else for a couple of nights, it might work. If abbey had gotten too upset I might of had to rethink the situation, but since she didn't it worked really well. For her it was just an association thing, she didn't really need or want to bf, it was just what she did, so breaking that association didn't stress her.
Hope that helps and if you want to know anything else let me know.
sleep issues
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