Saturday, August 11, 2012

Working on the Night Moves....

I don't know why, but every time I think of the phrase night wean, the song Night Moves pops into my head. Anyway, we're working on night weaning, and it's going shockingly well. I almost can't believe how well it's going.

Here's how we're doing it. Lately the Little Guy has had some bad nights of sleep, which result in him wanting to nurse all night long. I just can't deal with it. So a few nights ago, I picked him up and said, "No more milkies. Milkies during the day, not at night." So we laid down in bed and snuggled. At first, he whined a little and made the sign for milk, but he fell asleep faster than I was expecting. He woke up once or twice and asked for it again, whined a little when I said no, but fell asleep cuddling pretty quickly.

The next day, I coached him. As we got closer to bedtime, I said, "Remember, no milkies at night, only milkies during the day. Understand?" And he would give me a great big nod. I didn't really believe that he understood, and that night, when he woke up and asked, I said, "No, remember? No milkies at night, we can snuggle, but no milkies." And we laid down and snuggled up and he fell asleep no problem.

That's pretty much how the last couple of night have been. It's been four nights of not nursing at night. Last night, he fell asleep in minutes and didn't ask for milk until the morning.

Since it's going so well, I have to assume he was already ready for this and it just took me having had enough to get the ball rolling.

Between this and more frequent use of the potty, my Little Guy is turning into quite the big boy! I'm happy and sad about that.