Night Weaning a Breastfed Toddler/ Sleeping Through the Night

Wow! Your still nursing? And you are waking up every 60-90 minutes? Yikes! I don't even know how to give you advise as I never went through that. I agree with Lori A as the Dr. Ferber has great advice and like Lori both my kids were sleeping through the night as early as hers. Good luck.

try Dr. Ferber's Sleep training. it specifically addresses weaning from night feedings. we used it successfully and at 3.5 months old, our little one slept from 10pm to 6:30 am, without waking or feeding. At 4.5 months old, he slept from 9-6:30, and at 6.5 months old, he's sleeping from 8:30-6:30.

good luck.

If you have time, drop one feeding at a time. Use distraction and lots of cuddles when she wants to nurse. Yes, she will be furious and likely will push you away if she can't nurse but I found it the best way to wean my first who sounds a lot like your daughter. I chose to drop the night feedings last b/c they were the most difficult and with dropping the day feedings first I was able to use distraction. Good luck momma!!

My dr suggested shortening the time spent nursing...so, if she nurses for 10 minutes when she gets up, start shortening it to 8 minutes, 6 minutes, 4 minutes, etc. I haven't tried this yet, but maybe it's worth a try? Good luck to you!

When you nurse her before bed, do you nurse her to sleep? Or do you nurse her, keeping her awake, and then put her down awake?

If you have been nursing her to sleep, I suspect that she does not know how to fall asleep on her own. Imagine you are her: she falls asleep nursing in momma's arms, then suddenly wakes up alone and doesn't know how to go back to sleep - it would be scary. She needs to learn that she can fall asleep on her own. So, if she falls asleep nursing, have you tried waking her up just a little before you put her in her crib? That way she is really drousy, but not totally asleep, so that she learns that she can fall asleep without you there? Over time, wake her just a little bit more before you put her in her crib so that eventually she is actually falling asleep on her own.

I know it's counter-intuitive to wake your baby before putting her in bed, because you are so tired and you don't want to risk starting the falling asleep process all over again. But I don't see another way to teach her to fall asleep on her own, since you've tried CIO and it didn't work.

My child was alot younger when we weaned and when we sleep trained, I hav eno idea how you could make it through 17 months of waking every 90 minutes. Mine was still doing that at 9 months and that was too much for me.

We followed "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child", we used extinction for our Cry it out....we found that with our daughter's strong willed nature, the going in and checking was just giving her hope that we weren't serious and she would just cry longer/harder after each "check in". So we bit the bullet and really did CIO. The first night she cried 45 minutes before cropping of to sleep, BUT she slept 8 hours straight after that. Then next night it was 20 minutes, and then 8 hours of continuous sleep, and then the next night only 10 minutes of crying, the alst night, she just squawked once as walked out the door. Every night since then, minus a few sick days, she has slept 8--12 hours throught the night, and she is 4 now. she is a great sleeper ever since and loves her bed and her relaxing time.

When my daughter was about that age I finally told her no nursies (her word for breastfeeding) at night. We made the rule that she could only nurse during the day and stuck to it. It was really rough for about a week, but she eventually accepted it.
I also weaned her last week (at 22 months). We read Maggie's Weaning (a book about weaning) over and over and then had a weaning party for her (a long last breastfeeding and then cheers and cupcakes). I then used the Thum stuff for thumb sucking as mentioned below. When she tried to nurse I told her now that she was "all done nursies" my breasts were yucky. I let her try nursing very briefly (had to stop her before she sucked it all off) and asked her if it was yucky and she said yes and accepted it. She had one 2 minute fit where she wanted to nurse at bed time. Otherwise it has gone smoothly (other than she keeps talking about my yucky breasts, which would be a little embarrassing, but thankfully no one outside of our family really understand her yet). =) Good luck.

Some of the advice I have gotten for my 3 year old might work for you. Honestly at 17 months it might work better for you then me, my son is 3, he is way to aware of things to buy some of the tricks I have tried to fool him, lol!
So here it goes:
1. Num - for thumb sucking, taste yucky...apply it to your breast (I know sounds crazy, but did work for a few nights with us).
2. Bandaids - tell her mother's milk is broken, you have an owie. Something like that.
3. Wear a 1 piece bathing suit to bed, so that it' s more difficult to breastfeed.
Like you I read all the books and tried some of those methods, and just continued to nurse my son, I needed sleep and so did he! So I just went a long with it. Thing is, he is 3 now and I really want to end the BF, but it's very difficult...at least we have gotten it down to every other night or so, some nights he will sleep with out it. What i am saying it, either way it will be difficult you can hope that your daughter self weans, but be prepared to nurse for another year or so then (:
Best of luck!!

P.S. ReluctantTexan has many great things to say and a lot of what she had to say has been true for my son and I.
Also congrats for breastfeeding this long, and do what is right for you guys for sure. I know how it is to be annoyed with it, but it is a short time of your child's life when you look at it (:

I'm going to take a different approach than many of the others who answered. First, bravo for nursing so long and recognizing that your daughter still needs and or wants it for whatever reason!

My son is 28 months, still nurses-don't beat yourself up over this. It's really okay, despite people's issues with it. Every kid is different, every mother is different.

Mine co-sleeps, so it's a little different and he doesn't really wake to nurse anymore. Around 18 months though, I seem to remember reverting back to the waking. He's gone through all sorts of phases, practically weaning himself and then going back to it. Using it for comfort and making me the pacifier and actually seriously nursing. I'm not saying I've done everything right and I too have been through periods of absolute frustration. However, I am not a believer in CIO and sleep training and all these things. Some kids respond to that stuff very easily and for others it can be a complete trauma.

The easiest thing I have found if you want to start cutting it out and you truly are annoyed with the whole thing is to cut her off during the day first. All naptime nursing and sitting around nursing has to end first and talk to her about it. Let her know it's only for bedtime and that she's becoming a big girl and mommy's nursies or boobies or whatever you refer to them as are closing down. Use redirection as much as possible and when you start the nighttime weaning, replace it with bottles of water instead. It's going to be a struggle no matter what, but you can stand your ground as the parent and still be loving and gentle and not spend a fortune on books and methodologies. Most of our long term nursing friends have said about 60 days to completely wean. It's a process, it's not going to happen instantly. Keep in mind too that teething and growth spurts and anything that may be going on with her is going to fuel that want and need more than usual and this current phase may pass. I HIGHLY recommend not weaning during any period of health issues or changes in her. It will just make it worse on both of you. Enlist the help of friends/babysitters/relatives whoever watches or helps with your child. I find with my son, the more time he spends with dad or grandma the less focused he is on needing me and it helps.

I personally kept going because I wanted to get my son through all the teeth cutting-particularly molars and I just felt like he was a child that needed the extra attention. There's a lot of benefits to nursing as long as you have and taking your time to end it as well. 2 year molars are a several months long nightmare and nursing is one of the few things that has helped us through it.

You can do this mama, use loving words and lots of snuggles and hugs and redirection to playing singing etc to work through it. You don't need all this extraneous material, you just have to tune into what you and she both need and find something that eases you both through the transition. I wish you luck and better sleep very soon!

Before I answer... I want to ask why is it you don't want to continue nursing your child when she is giving you blatant cues she's not ready to wean.