Love BFing - but need more sleep!

I'm tired! Elizabeth is 16 months and loves her boobies like there is no tomorrow, and I'm happy to keep going...........but I'm tired of being woken sometimes twice a night.
She likes a boob in the morning, although I try to get brekky into her first. She will have a quick go before her daytime naps (x2), but if I'm not there she will sleep without it.
I can sometimes "talk her out" of a late evening "top up", but I am ususally up again at 4ish as well. She sleeps in her cot at the end of my bed, I just throw her in bed with me for the feed, but I have to put her back in the cot or she throws herself around sleepily. It's too cold and I'm too sleepy to fight at 4am!

I'm happy to feed her till she's 15, I would really, really, really like a full nights sleep after 4 years. What can I do?

Sleepily yours........

I hear ya! I am night nursing two, and I think I would probably be woken 6 or 8 times a night! It is one of those situations where I think this too shall pass.

Yep - Tallon still wakes for booby - altho, not quite as much since the nights have been warmer. He still co-sleeps with us most of the time, so I don't usually have to wake up too much to feed him. He throws himself around a bit too - I'm getting him sick of pushing his legs into my back, and of course into my belly if I'm facing him!

I don't have any suggestions. Is she perhaps waking because she's in your room? I do sometimes think Tallon wakes coz he's next to us in bed.. altho I've tested that theory, putting him in his own bed, but he wakes and comes into us LOL. We're actually going through more of a comfort stage than feeding through the night.. he wakes and puts his arm out to hold me or grab my hair ( :rolleyes: ) and goes back to sleep - so doesn't always require boob these days.

Ooh - Cyathea - how do you go waking to 2? I'm thinking this will probably be me in 4 months time LOL. Do you co-sleep as well? (sorry Lulu - bit of a hijack there :) )

Lucy, do you think you are ready for night weaning? Many women do this at about that age, but continue to bf during the day. Most of the people I know who have done it, found it really easy, their kids gave up night feeds really easily, but a couple found it harder.

If you are interested in going down that path, the ABA can give you some great tips. I think there are two ways to go about it - a feeding exclusion time which gradually gets longer - say no feeds between 11pm and 3am, to start with as an example. The other way is to give a little less at each night feed each night. The theory is that they then drink more during the day for what they aren't having at night and then don't need a night feed at all. HTH.

I think you can start offering water through the night too instead of milk.

Around 14-15 mths, DH started getting up and just offering DD a drink of rice milk (sweet like breast milk) and after a few nights of him patting her back to sleep, she stopped getting up. I would still feed her around 5-6 am if she got up then, and before bed at night, and during the day (of course) but it stopped the constant getting up all night long!

We found the weaning through the night quite easy. When DD woke DH would go in and see her and give her a cuddle and put her back to sleep. Eventually she just stopped waking up.

Excellent stuff! I really appreciate it.

I will try a few things this week, but it's nice to know I'm not the only one. It's not soooooo bad, but I think she will skip dinner sometimes as she knows she can always have boobies later.....

Good luck Lulu. I don't have any tips as I'm one of the blessed who's DD considerately stopped bfing during the night quite a while ago. Having said that though, when she does wake during the night I always assume it's for comfort, rather than a feed. I will cuddle her and if she won't go back in her cot happily bring her into bed with us to co-sleep. So maybe you could try not offering her a bf if she does wake and just comforting her instead?

Let us know how you go. Btw, love the pic in your ticker - I can't believe how quickly our babies are growing up!

My 8 month old is still feeding frequently thru the night - 4-6 times on average - despite feeding well thru the day with 3 solid meals + snacks. I really have had enough. I am happy to feed 1 or 2 times but so many feeds + getting up to toddler for toilet trips and general comfort = not much sleep for mummy!

I know its a sleep thing not as hunger thing but I've tried a gentle form of CC as well as a week at sleep school and nothing has worked for more than a few nights (he's very persistent!). I've tried to get him to take a dummy on and off all his life but to no avail. The other night I grabbed one from the cupboard and tried it after 45 minutes of comfort nursing and VERY sore nipples and to my surprise, he took it! So now my plan is to feed not more than 3 hourly thru the night ie 10:30, 1:30 and 4:30 (I can deal with this for the moment) and use the dummy the other times. After a few weeks of this I will cut out the middle feed.

Yes I will be up all night replacing the dummy, but at least DH can have a turn! I swore I wouldn't let this bub have a dummy (my almost 3 yo stil lhas one in bed only) but after 8.5 months of 2 hourly feeding I really need a break.

When I stopped the night feeds for my boys (twins) at first I would get up and cuddle them back to sleep (I would all asleep too in the arm chair in their room) then after about a monthDG would get up instead and pat and give them dummy. Gee can't remember at what age this was but it was just before 12 months. Then over winter when they had colds I did give them a night breastfeed again when they needed it but once they were well again they didn't ask for it.