How to get my 20 month old son to wean and sleep thru the night

Lise - posted on 08/14/2012

I just want to throw it out there that nightweaning and STTN do no always go hand-in-hand... A good friend nightweaned her lo successfully about 5-6 months ago now, and that toddler still wakes 4-6 times a night... Only now she struggles to get him back to sleep. Just throwing it out there as something to think about.

Dove - posted on 08/12/2012

I can tell you what 'I' did and it worked for us. My son and I co-sleep. When he was about 18 months I started talking to him during his bedtime nursing letting him know that he was a big boy and that big boys don't need 'baboo' until morning. Yeah, the little stinker used to look up at me and laugh when I'd say that. lol I still talked to him about it EVERY night. When he'd wake up I'd tell him that it wasn't morning and to go back to sleep. Usually he'd start to cry, so I'd nurse him right away. I repeated that pattern every night and for every night waking and eventually he'd occasionally just fuss a little and go back to sleep! His night wakings started to get less and the times he WOULD wake, but would go back to sleep without nursing got more and more.

He wasn't night weaned until he was 2, but it was a very gentle, very gradual night weaning method that worked for us. Before we started night weaning his wakings were 1-5 times a night, every night with maybe half a dozen random exceptions of sleeping through!

Lori - posted on 08/12/2012

This sounds just like my LO's. I have a 20 month old that still wakes several times a night. A typical night is her waking twice. On the rare occasion she will only wake once, and if she's teething or otherwise not feeling great she wakes more often. Last night was a night where she woke every 2 hours. I'm almost ready to begin the methods in the link that Celeste posted. I have finally gotten her to stop waking during her one nap time. She was waking after 30 to 45 minutes of sleep and wanting to nurse again then would sleep for another 45 minutes to an hour.

My older daughter started sleeping through the night most nights on her own around 17 months. Some time after about 6 weeks old I kept getting asked "is she sleeping though the night yet?" I felt like I was doing something wrong that my baby wasn't sleeping through the night when everyone elses was. Then I started doing a bit more reading and talking to other moms with babies close to my babies age. I found out that while there were a few lucky moms who's baby slept through at a very young age, the majority of us had babies who didn't sleep all night long. And while some moms did manage to get their babies to start sleeping a bit better by letting them cry, I can't and won't do that to my children. And the current research suggests that it's really not a good idea to use any cry it out method. Babies/Children will begin sleeping longer stretches on their own when they are ready. No sleep training is necessary. However, if you're at the point of not functioning due to lack of sleep then the methods of Dr. Jay Gordon may help. I really like that he never suggests that you leave your baby to cry alone. And I know several Mom's who have tried his methods and have had very good success.

Celeste - posted on 08/12/2012

I can totally relate!! My twin boys were just like that. They'd start out in their crib and then end up with us because they were nursing all through the night. They were about your son's age when I night weaned. This is the method that I used:



http://drjaygordon.com/attachment/sleepp...



Once they were night weaned, I felt OK in continuing to let them nurse.