Having young kids inevitably usually means running on lack of sleep. And this becomes the norm. But some days it just hits you hard.
The reason this is on my mind today is that last night I was up from 12:30am-2:30am with my 15 month old daughter! I did everything; nursed her a few times, rocked her, tried to sleep with her, even gave her a snack when she signed ‘eat.’ But nothing worked until 2:30am when she finally decided she was ready to go back to sleep. And of course in the morning I had to go to work.
I am sure many can parents can relate to this. You get used to waking up really early and getting up for the night feeds. But there is that rare night when you get to sleep through the whole night with no interruption, wake up feeling supremely refreshed and then you realize that you and your baby both slept through the whole night! This happened to me last week and now I’m craving it again.
I tried weaning my daughter from her 4am feed by sending my husband in, but she’s pretty crafty and started waking up around 12am or 1am for her feed.
So I decided to just let it be. She’ll run her course and when she’s ready to sleep through the night she will. My 3.5 year old just recently decided to become a fabulous sleeper so I know Kyah will too. It’s only a matter of time.
When did your baby stop waking up for a late night or early morning feed? Did it just happen naturally or did you train your baby?
As dreamy as an uninterrupted sleep sounds, I am happy to wake to feed my 15 month old daughter throughout the night. During my pregnancy, I learned that night wakings are a protective feature for babies and for toddlers, waking at night to nurse is a great way for them to soothe teething pain or provide them comfort during physical and emotional developmental changes. The way I have coped with the night wakings are to have my daughter sleep beside me in bed. This way, she doesn’t fully wake at night, she just rolls towards me, latches on and nurses herself back to sleep. Another benefit of this is that I barely wake too, and I am easily able to fall back into a deep sleep. I used this same approach with my now 4 year old and when he was around 2 years old we night weaned him (b/c I was tired and pregnant) and one night later he was sleeping through the night consistently, and continues to do so now. He also sleeps next to us still on another mattress with his Dad, which is pushed up to the bed his sister and I sleep on. Bed sharing and nursing my little ones at night has worked very well for us. I encourage all families to find an approach that works for them.
Thanks for your comment Pamela. It seems like you have found something that really works well for your family!