I'm Pretty Sure This Isn't How Nightweaning Works

[ricevermicelli]

Our progress on night weaning so far:
I declare that I have had it up to my absolute limit, and we're no longer doing this, and Danger Lad! spontaneously begins sleeping through the night. Two nights so far. Touch wood. Touch lots of it. Run outside, turn around three times and spit. Thank the deity of your choice. Thank the deity of *my* choice (which is all of them - deities who get left out get *very* shirty about it).

It's just that I'm quite certain that this is not how night weaning generally works. Imagine if it did. Imagine the parenting boards dedicated to discussions of when it was okay to make the declaration of had-it-up-to-hereness, how to make the declaration sincere enough to be effective, the shame of those who want to make it early and the self-righteousness of those who claim they never will, the please for understanding from parents who are genuinely tearing their hair at 6 months or a year... Just like parenting boards now, actually.

It often feels like there are two kinds of moms on the internet. There are selfless AP mothers who understand that, however awful the sleep deprivation seems, it is really a very short while in the life of a child and actually a precious opportunity to bond with their babies. And there are evil, way-past-mainstream, parent-centered moms who never miss a night of sleep because they take Ambien during the third trimester and either wear earplugs or have babies who sleep through the night on their own as soon as they come home from the hospital.

Anyway, while I appreciate the fact that Danger Lad! has cut me a break the past two nights, it concerns me that we're not actually night weaning here, in any way that's evident to him. When he wakes up at seven in the morning, I feel like hey, it's not night anymore, we can nurse. And so, to him, it still seems that when he wakes up, whenever that is, he nurses. I'm certain that this streak won't last (no prior streak has ever lasted), which means that some night soon, we will be stuck re-enacting scenes from the early life of Charles Manson. There will be screaming and pain. Martha Sears, Katie Allison Granju and Dr. Laura will show up in person to kick my ass, and I will have to take an exam or give a presentation at 8 in the morning that follows. During this event, I will hallucinate Dr. Laura standing over me with a cattle prod. She will not be wearing sexy boots.

In the meantime, despite my two full nights of sleep, I think I should nap. I should to into the Manson thing as energetic as possible, and clutching my copy of Operating Instructions to my chest like armor.

Comments

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

How old is he now? There does come a time when even the most nursey child decides that a good night's sleep is worth more than the calorie intake. He might just be more or less ready to let go of it.

[naomikritzer]

I think my favorites are the selfless AP mommies who still consider it evil-cry-it-out when the "baby" is in grade school.

At some point well before then, it stops being "cry-it-out" and starts being "ignoring a tantrum."

My girls started sleeping through the night at two. Both had been getting better at sleeping so I moved them to their own room, at which point they started sleeping through the night completely, no problemo, making me wonder why I hadn't tried this at 15 months, which is when I declared firmly that I had had it UP TO HERE and my children blithely ignored me.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Gotta say, that's pretty much how it worked for us.

I usually avoid saying this on the internet lest the hordes of people for whom this is *not* how it worked descend on our house to kill us. I suspect anyone else for whom this is how it worked is similarly keeping quiet. Ah, sample set bias.

I hope it keeps working like that :). Isn't sleep awesome?

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

I try not to ever say anything about parenting on the Internet, even though I did a lot of typical AP stuff - not because I was so devoted to my child, but because I was broke and lazy! I don't bring that up in public though, not ever.

[redheadedmuse.livejournal.com]

hey - will you be my LJ friend? 'cause I fairly constantly hear myself saying, "I'm not really attachment parenting, I'm just lazy."

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

Awesome, someone else willing to admit it! :) (and yes, if you're serious :)

[ricevermicelli.livejournal.com]

Sleep is awesome. I've missed it.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

We found that sleeping through the night kind of happened all at once, without warning.

The other abrupt shift that happened without any notice was when Alex went from needing someone to be with her to go to sleep, to preferring to go to sleep alone. That was a real what-the-hell situation. One night I'd been in there forever trying to get her down, and I stepped out in the hall in total frustration thinking "I'll go back in when she cries," and she never cried until morning.

[bookdivalia.livejournal.com]

You're jinxing it, woman, YOU'RE JINXING IT.

[redheadedmuse.livejournal.com]

I put Rio in her own room very abruptly one night when she was 18 months old and had never slept for a solid hour without waking to nurse. We all slept blissfully for seven hours straight.

That only lasted a few days, as you suspect, and there were tears and mayhem at times, but I insisted on putting her down in her own bed every night. And when she woke at night I would tell her she could not nurse until the sun came up - eventually this turned into a cute, sweet game where she'd crawl into bed after dawn and say "nursing sun coming!"

[kitmf.livejournal.com]

Quite, quite seriously - the solution here is The Other Parent. He doesn't need to nurse in the wee hours. So hand over the baby monitor to someone who has no milk. Otherwise the day will come when he does wake up at two or three am and there you are, with milk and no good reason except meanness from his point of view for not handing it over. Of course he's going to throw a screaming fit - at which point you will cave over exhaustion and consideration for the rest of the people living there. Which means you will be back to nursing whenever he chooses until the day comes when he doesn't choose any more. Now that will happen and there are people who do that. But if you have made a decision that he doesn't get nursed between - say midnight and five am - then during those hours the person who goes to comfort him when he wakes up should be someone who doesn't have milk in their breasts. At least until he is weaned.

[ricevermicelli.livejournal.com]

Your advice is good, and I would absolutely do it... but the Other Parent in this case sleeps through the fire alarm.

[kitmf.livejournal.com]

I think I would go wake him up and send him to the baby. I know, I'm evil that way.

[ricevermicelli.livejournal.com]

It's good advice, and totally useless for our situation. He sleeps through fire alarms, when roused (which is difficult), he is shambling and brainless.

On the upside, there is no need to stop the baby from screaming to accommodate the other people in the house, given how generally unwakeable they are. My current plan involves high-necked jog bras and walks around the block.

[naomikritzer]

Sometimes with sleeping through the night, it helps if you can get the baby used to going to sleep without nursing in the first place. This is another area where the breastless person can be useful. We discovered that Kiera would happily go to sleep without nursing if I was not in the house, so I spent a month where I simply left the house and went to a coffee shop for two hours every evening and Ed put her to bed.

Good luck with continued easy night-weaning.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

I simply left the house and went to a coffee shop for two hours every evening

Wow. Talk about lemonade from lemons. Sweet.

[naomikritzer]

I brought my laptop and worked.

As an additional bonus, I discovered that writing on a laptop in a coffee shop actually SUCKS ASS from an ergonomic perspective. I can't stand to type or mouse on a laptop keyboard, so I had to haul along my oversized extended ergo split keyboard plus an external mouse, making it a real pain, and even with that, I wound up with an aching back from writing there.

Having established pretty firmly that using a laptop as a laptop (as opposed to using it as an overpriced desktop, which is what I did most of the time) was hard on me physically in some important ways, I went ahead and just bought a desktop when I replaced it this year. Which saved me a bundle.

[zathrus.livejournal.com]

Sometimes, you have a pattern of behavior that's totally unacceptable, and you have to draw the line and say, "No more!" And then you have to prove that you mean it, again and again and again and again, until they finally believe you and stop trying to cross that line.

Sometimes, you are dealing with a one-time behavior, or a behavior that you can't deal with that one time, and you have to say, "I can't deal with this right now." And then you have to find some way to make it through the next little while, until the one-time situation is over.

And sometimes, there are absolute gifts of amazing grace, when you realize that you can't deal with something and it has to end, now, for all time, and the kid cooperates without even realizing he's doing it.

I cannot possibly tell you which this is; you are in a much better position to judge than I could ever be. After all, he's your kid. All I can say is, Enjoy the sleep. And don't worry about the lack of conflict too much; if conflict and testing of limits is needed, it will come in due time, and if it is not, count your lucky stars -- and go back to sleep. :) (If you're still really worried about it, you could start saying things at 7am like, "OK, yes, it's morning, you can nurse now," which lays the stage for a potential 3am declaration of, "It's not morning, you can't nurse now." But that's totally optional, from my perspective.)

Newt

[beth_leonard]

We started a no-Mommy-until-daylight policy when Peter was about 2, in the winter. In the summer when the sun rises at 5am it's a little harder, but at least Peter had a firm rule he could understand. Now we're back on a schedule of Mommy-gets-Peter and Daddy-gets-Amber. I don't remember why that happened. Peter gets up once/night and Amber sleeps through until 6am.
--Beth

[drwex]

Dammit woman, now my cow orkers are looking at me REALLY oddly as I'm laughing so hard I'm crying.

It's like a CLUE game: Dr Laura, with the cattle prod, in the un-sexy boots.

*snerk*sniffle*