Q&A: monster nursing session in the middle of the night

Deb writes:

I have read many times on your site that the baby will eventually sleep through the night, but I am really feeling like my son will not learn unless I do something like CIO (although I've been opposed to it since he was born). 

My 15-month old is an avid nurser, and has been since birth.  I've mostly weaned him during the day because I work and did not want to pump any longer.  I nurse him to sleep though, plus once during the night when he wakes up between 2 an 4.  Which sounds good, but that nursing session usually lasts 2 hours!  I also nurse him when he wakes in the morning between 5:30 and 6:30 am.  If I try to send my husband in, the baby goes crazy, thrashing and screaming, so having my husband tend him is not an option.  It is obvious that even though my son naps doing the day without nursing (usually in a bouncy seat or in a porta-crib that is shaken to relax him), he NEEDS it during the night.  I am about ready to let him cry to teach him to sleep - he is starting to be cranky because he is not getting enough sleep, but I don't want to damage him or instill fear in him...  Other than the sleep issue, he is a GREAT baby.  He walks and talks up a storm.

So, my question is, do you actually know children who were spoiled (as I think my son is) and then eventually outgrew it without any action?  I am afraid that I am now postponing the inevitable by avoiding doing CIO and I want it behind me rather than in front of me.  How exactly does it happen if no action is taken."

The instructor of the newborn care class I took 4 years ago told us a lot of things, but the only thing she said that stuck with me was "'Spoiled' means something went bad from lack of use or attention. Giving too much love or attention to a child is only going to help the child." It's obvious that your son is used to having his needs met. In the long run that's going to be the best thing that could happen to him. It's just now that you need to figure out another plan for this one thing.

And, yes, he'll grow out of it eventually if you keep on as you have been. Maybe not soon, but eventually. There is no 10-year-old in the country who still wakes up and nurses for two hours in the middle of the night.:) If you aren't particularly bugged by his nursing and just think you should want to stop it for philosophical reasons, don't worry about it and just lie to anyone who asks. But if the long 2 am session is making you want to gouge your eyes out with a grapefruit spoon nuts, then you should try to figure out a plan to stop it. You know CIO doesn't actually teach a child how to sleep--teaching means showing someone how to do something and being with him while he's working on it. CIO could make his waking even worse. And there are plenty of other points on the continuum between CIO and "nurse all night long"--you just have to find the point that works for you.

If it were me in your situation, I would keep the nursing to sleep (because it's easy and gets him to sleep with no fuss and is a great way to reconnect at the end of the day) and wouldn't worry about the 5:30 nursing session right now (because it's probably the thing you have the least control over). I'd focus on getting rid of the 2 (two) hour session in the middle of the night. Yowza. I don't think there's any practical way you can do this without having your husband go in to him. And, yes, he is going to go nuts the first few nights he doesn't get you at 2 am. But it's better to have him angry that your husband's there than scared and angry that no one comes when he cries, or clawing at your chest wondering why you won't nurse him now when you normally do.

It sounds like he's gotten used to waking up and nursing then. (Obviously.) More than that, though, is what we need to figure out. Is he hungry? Does he want connection in the middle of the night? What's causing him to wake up then in the first place--is there a consistent noise outside that's rousing him? The only way to figure out which of these things it is is to try them out and see what works.

Despite what some of the experts would tell you, it's entirely possible that he's hungry in the middle of the night. 15-yearmonth-olds expend more energy than, well, anyone. That takes a lot of calories to sustain, so he might just be needing to tank up for the rest of the night. In which case you could try feeding him solid food at night. Crackers, cubes of cheese, etc.--whatever he likes that will fill him up and sit in his stomach for awhile. Even if he rejects food the first couple of nights, keep offering it a few nights after that. I'd be surprised if the solution is as simple as tossing him a few Cheddar Bunnies in the middle of the night, but it might help out, even if all it does is distract him from nursing or confuse him into going back to sleep. If you don't already leave a bottle or sippy of water with him in case he's thirsty, start doing that, too. (Do they market cupholders for cribs?)

He may be waking up because he's scared or wants some connection in the middle of the night. There are a couple of different ways you could go with this. You could leave a CD player on low in his room. You could get one of those crib music thingies that he could turn on himself to hear the music play (and help him practice with it during the day). You could work on getting him to snuggle with a lovey and help get himself back to sleep with the lovey. Or you could go hardcore and put a twin-sized (or larger) bed in his room. Put those flexible rails on all sides so he can't fall out. Then when he wakes up and your husband goes in to him, your husband can just lie down in bed with him to soothe him to sleep. When your son falls back to sleep your husband can roll away and go back to bed as usual. (And if he falls asleep himself he'll at least be in a decent bed instead of in a rocking chair or on the floor.)

The first week of your husband going in to him is going to piss him off royally. But if your husband's got something new for him (food, or lying down in the same bed, etc.) instead of just a lack of breasts, your son may switch gears in a few days and start to accept your husband. Then gradually he will just drop that wake-up because there's no real reason to wake up if he's not getting any milk. (Unless he's super-hungry, in which case you could just start leaving a snack where he can reach it so you get to be out of the loop.)

Your husband's going to have to take the hit for the team for the 2 am wake-up. The first few nights could be extremely rough, so you should probably start on a Friday night (assuming your husband works M-F) so he can nap the next day. But if you're consistent that the 2 am nursing doesn't exist anymore but someone will always be there to comfort your son, he'll figure out that he should just accept your husband in the middle of the night instead of you. (That's a important concept for him to know--someone will be there for him when he asks for help, even if no milk is involved.) And he will gradually stop waking up at that time, so soon your husband will be out of the loop, too.

Good luck. It's so hard to make a change when you know your baby is going to be angry and tantrumy about it. But if you can make it past the first 3-4 nights it'll start to get easier.

Edited to add (thanks to PumpkinMama): Before you start this you should talk to your son about what's going to happen. Tell him that you aren't going to nurse in the middle of the night anymore ("when it's dark out") but if he wakes up Daddy will come to help him, and then you can nurse again when it's light out. Keep talking to him about this for a few days before you start. Then the night before you start, make sure you have a good chat about it before he goes to sleep, and your husband can remind him of it when he goes in to him, and when you nurse him in the morning be sure to reinforce the "now it's morning so we can nurse!" idea. I think this is helpful even with little babies, but a 15-month-old is absolutely old enough to understand and it will help him accept it more easily if he's aware of the plan and knows it's going to happen. At this age they have so much more receptive language than they can indicate, so make use of that.

Comments

[PumpkinMama]

I would add that she should *talk* to her son about what the plan is - when I night weaned my son, he was just a few months older than the boy in question, and even though he didn't have many words, I explained to him ahead of time what we were going to do and why - it really helped him (and I was amazed at how much he understood) when I could remind him as he was howling at 2am, "Remember, mommy can't nurse you at night anymore, but we can nurse in the morning when its light out. For now, we can sit and rock until you fall back asleep" he would visibly calm and settle a lot quicker once I reminded him of the plan (I also offered water in a sippy cup at those times, as he was genuinely thirsty as well). It only took 3-4 nights, each progressively easier and we were done with the middle of the night nursing sessions.

[Moxie]

Oh, duh! PumpkinMama, I totally forgot to put this in (although it was on my outline of things to write in the answer). Thank you for bringing this up. I'm going to go add it in to the original post.

[Heather]

Feel free to delete this one ... did you really mean "15-_year_-olds".....

[happy]

I sort of just went through this myself (with a couple of changes). My son (14 months old) was waking up at midnight, then 2 and 4 am before finally waking up for the day at 6am. And even though our nursing sessions were short, it was driving me crazy! I think a lot of that was that I (erroneously) thought that by his age he should be acting more grown up (?) and waking up less. I had to come to my senses that just because he turned a year doesn’t mean he’s not a baby still.
Also, my son will also thrash around if it was Dh who went to him and offer a sippy cup, my son would keep looking towards where our bed is (we share a room) and wouldn’t calm down until he was in bed with mommy. Anyway, I had had enough. So, Dh took a few days off and I went to sleep in the other room. So, when DS would wake up, DH would bring him to bed with him, offer a sippy cup and DS would get back to sleep. It was incredible, because I wasn’t there; DS didn’t ask for me and acted like a little angel for DH. It took three nights and it was heaven for me as I got full night sleep. Even my coworkers commented how much rested I looked (how sad, I guess I was looking like crap). Now, Ds still wakes up at midnight, we bring him to bed, he takes two sips of water then falls back asleep until 4 when he wakes up thirsty again, takes a couple more sips and then wakes up at 6. It may not seem like an improvement to many but it has been for us.
This is what worked for us, but we co-sleep half of the night. You don’t mention if you do any sort of co-sleeping or not. The idea of CIO has gone through my mind a couple of times but when I see how my DS acts as soon as he come to bed with us (sometimes he just goes back to sleep without needing any milk), I know that he just needs company to go back to sleep. He doesn’t need any patting or rocking, he just needs to look around and make sure that there’s someone around him. I hope it goes smoothly for you guys.

[Moxie]

Ha! Heather, no. I did not mean 15-year-olds. 15-year-olds expend more of something, but I'm not sure it's energy. Will go fix that now.

[Jody]

Just to give you a sense of what "outgrowing it" might mean, my son woke to nurse at 1-2 am and at 5am until he was 29 months old. And often the midnight session lasted an hour or more. Then, he dropped both of those sessions at the same time, over a period of five days. He had reflux and some growth issues so I was happy to keep nursing him at those times. But I know what you mean about the drive-you-crazy aspects.

Just a head's up, whether you nurse or offer a snack: my son ended up with five pretty big cavities at his first, 3-year old dentist appointment. It's probably genetics more than the night-nursing (all my baby teeth were silver by the time they fell out), but I wish I'd seen a dentist for the first time at a year (that's what the pediatric dentists recommend), so we'd known what effect the night-nursing was having on his teeth. At the very least, I could have seen if a wet washcloth on the teeth or a sip of water after the nighttime nursing would have reduced the risk of cavities.

[Moxie]

Ooh, Jody--good point. I'm going to put up a full post on this later, but dentists are now finding that the natural sugar xylitol (from birch trees) kills the bacteria that causes cavities. There are special wipes you can buy called Swiffies that are preloaded with xylitol to wipe babies' mouths and teeth to prevent cavities (we've been wiping before nursing to sleep, figuring that the xylitol will be on the baby's teeth and prevent the milk from sitting there, adn how are we going to actually wipe the teeth after nursing to sleep?).

Also, it turns out that kids of mothers who use xylitol products (toothpastes, gums, etc.) for the first 2 years of the child's life have lower rates of cavities up through age 5, regardless of the dental care the child receives. I've started using a special xylitol-heavy toothpaste, but Tom's of Maine has it in some of the adult flavors and in the kids' clear gel toothpaste.

[erika]

Do you mean Spiffies teeth wipes? I looked for Swiffies and all I got were sites selling Swiffer products. ;)

[Bihari]

Whew, this whole post was a help. My fifteen month old is also up about three times a night, after a lovely interlude from months ten to thirteen when he actually slept most of the night, with maybe one wake-up. Then, between ear infections, teeth, and growth spurts, it turned into a goat rodeo. It's helpful to hear that I'm not the only one in the world up with a over-one-year-old baby all night. Here's to this time next year, when I bet we're all sleeping better.

[MotherLawyer]

Ok, I had this same problem but I "hit the wall" earlier than you. At a little past 12 mos I cut him off at night. He didn't *need* to eat, he just LOVES to sleep latched on. I am v v large chested and cannot nurse while lying down, so I felt very trapped (and freaking exhausted from trying to sleep sitting up on the couch half the night while working full time). My DS was also getting more and more sleep deprived and it was really showing in his face.

My DS got MORE pissed if we tried to offer anything other than his boobies, so he did have to CIO. It worked out. He's fine. He still nurses to sleep and gets his marathon morning nurse/cuddle/snooze session and I am no longer a first rate candidate for the looney farm. And his daytime napping fell into line with the conquering of the nighttime wakings.

I know my version is very unPC, but I wanted to share what saved me and my DS.

BTW: I really trully believe his body was waking him from habit. He was waking to the minute at the same time every night. I *forced* him to quiet that alarm. It was the right choice for us.

[Kate]

We did CIO to get to sleep at around 12 months, because the marathon, hour and a half long, everybody's crying, getting to sleep process was killing me. It was relatively easy, as these things go. Took about 4 days, and my son never cried for more than 10-ish minutes or worked himself into a frenzy or anything like that. Anyway, magically, this marked the end of the every night, like clockwork, 3 AM waking, nursing, co-sleeping thing. And we weren't even trying to fix that. This isn't the same as the questioner's situation, since she seems to have a good going-to-sleep routine. But, the one thing that I did learn from it was that it can be hard to judge what your baby "needs" before you give them a shot to try to do without that thing. In this case, I thought that my baby needed me to rock him to sleep (after bath, book, etc.) for, literally, hours. And I thought this because he would cry and fuss so pitiably while I rocked him, never really relaxing, clinging to me desparately. Anyway, this is getting long, but I now believe that I was more keeping him up/upsetting him than I was helping him wind down and fall asleep.

[Moxie]

Kate, what you did wasn't CIO by my definition. To me, CIO is letting your baby cry endlessly (I've heard of people letting their kids cry for two hours!), even when they escalate instead of winding down. It seems to me that there are (at least) two kinds of kids--ones who release tension from crying and ones who build tension from crying. The ones who release tension from crying are the ones like your son (and my second son) who need to cry or fuss for a few minutes to fall asleep. The other ones will just escalate and shouldn't be CIOd because it just makes everything worse. It sounds like the questioner's son builds tension from crying, based on his reaction to the dad coming in.

I feel lucky that I figured out that my second son wasn't always able to be comforted to sleep as early as I did (I figured it out when he was maybe 6-8 weeks old). It got him to sleep a lot more easily once I learned that if the nursing was winding him up, he'd fuss himself to sleep if I left him alone for 3 minutes.

[Rosie_Kate]

I just have to give props for the "Daddy-comfort" method. It has worked very well for us. Yeah, the baby does go nuts for the first few nights, and yeah, it really does suck if you live in a small house (like we do) and have to listen to baby going nuts. But as long as you stick to it with comfort but no nursing (back patting and singing by Mama has sometimes worked for us when Daddy gets to the end of his rope!), baby should eventually give up.