My one-year-old on her birthday!

My nursling now joins the 21.4% of American babies that are breastfeeding at the one-year mark according to the National Immunization Survey breastfeeding statistics. She falls at the 75th and 80th percentiles for height and weight, which puts her right in between her oldest sister who always topped out at the 95th and her other sister who hovered around the 50th.

If I add up all the months I have been breastfeeding — from this precious moment with my first born, through this funny moment with my second nursing toddler, up to my third baby — I have been lactating for seven years now, which is about 19% of my life. I have to say, that gives me a certain sense of accomplishment. It’s not because my nurslings and I breastfed for any particular length of time or met any particular milestone, but because I have the satisfaction of knowing I worked hard to overcome the challenges I faced along the way — the challenges that inspired me to start blogging about breastfeeding — and because I have had the satisfaction of providing my milk for my babies.

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3

Four baby teeth at nine months

Over the weekend she climbed the entire flight of stairs as I followed her right behind. It’s a new world and I definitely need to be extra vigilant now! She can stand unsupported for short periods of time, and seems poised to take her first steps. I am in no particular rush for that to happen, although both my older girls were actually easier to care for once they could walk and did not need to rely on me so much to get at the things that caught their fancy!

Breastfeeding continues to go well. She nurses as desired throughout the day and night. She naps 3-4 times per day — a catnapper as I said before — and wakes 3-4 times at night. I readily admit that I don’t enjoy getting up with her for even the minute it takes me to nurse her back to sleep, but we co-sleep and I fall back asleep quickly.

She enjoys solid food and eats a modified version of whatever the rest of us eat for each meal. Vegetables, fruit, beans, little bits of meat. She sits at the table with us, feeds herself, and makes a grand mess!

We follow a delayed and selective vaccination schedule based on The Vaccine Book. Nicole got two vaccinations today, and that went surprisingly well. The first was the oral rotavirus vaccine. After an unavoidable round of antibiotics for an ear infection a couple of months ago, she knows the drill about taking “medicine” and she swallowed this stuff just fine. Then came the dreaded shot. I got ready to nurse her, as breastfeeding helps with pain management, but she knew what was going to happen and decided she wanted to watch. I always warn her that she will get a shot, that it will be an “ouch,” and then it will be over. I fully believe she understands me and deserves to be told what to expect. Today she cried for a second after the shot, but stopped when I said it was “all done.” She then gave the nurse quite the evil eye!

Anyone else with a baby around this age? How is everything going for you?

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3

I thought I would update how Nicole is doing at six months of age.

Solid Foods

Nicole continues to enjoy trying new solid foods. As you can see, mashed ripe avocado is one of her favorites! Just as with breastfeeding, I believe in baby-led solid food feeding. She feeds herself with her fingers or with a spoon that I have pre-loaded for her with food. She controls how much she gets, and I make sure to take her out of the high chair before she ever gets upset. I want that feeding chair to be a happy place! It must be working because she certainly is an enthusiastic eater so far!

Measurements

At six and a half months I took her in for her six-month well baby visit with the pediatrician. I would have taken her in earlier, but we both had rotavirus and I completely forgot about the appointment! So, at 6.5 months she weighed 17 pounds, 11.5 ounces, and was 27 inches in length. That puts her in the 75th and 90th percentiles on the CDC growth charts. I have yet to translate it to the WHO charts because that requires me to convert from pounds to kilograms and inches to centimeters, and that’s just too much math at the moment, even with on-line conversion calculators. I just look at Nicole and know that she’s doing fine — that’s all I need to know!

Sleep

When Nicole was getting her two bottom teeth in she woke up more often at night, every hour or two. Now that they are in and she’s not yet working on her top teeth, she is thankfully back to sleeping in four hour stretches or more.

She’s started crawling, and that could have contributed to the extra night-waking too. She wants to practice her abilities to roll around, push up on all fours, and crawl right off the mattress (which is on the floor for that very reason).

Reflux

For the record, and for all those mothers out there wondering when the spit-up will stop, please oh please make it stop, at six months Nicole only spits up occasionally rather than after every feeding. There was significant improvement some time after she turned five months old, both in the frequency and volume of spit up. She never had a problem to the point that I was concerned, especially in light of the fact that she was certainly growing well, not projectile vomiting, and not showing any worrying signs of food allergies. Still, I am not sorry to see the spit-up lessen!

And you?

Anyone else out there just starting to introduce solid foods? How is it going?

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3

I remember feeling a little betrayed by the attachment parenting experts who basically said, “Deal with it. This too shall pass,” a lot frustrated with the exhaustion, and a little baffled by what to do about the problem. I was not willing to let my nursling cry-it-out, but I was not sure what else might work. Here is the question from reader Jennifer L.:

I met a mama of a 17-month-old in the park today and of course, “The question” came up. She looked at my 14-month-old and asked in a fair, even tone, “Is yours sleeping through the night?” Even without knowing this person, the sound of victory rang through clearly in her question. Her daughter was sleeping soundly and happily due to their hard work “sleep training.” Their daughter is happy and cheerful all day and goes to sleep easily thanks to the “Sleep Easy Solution.”

My daughter only has four teeth, and I imagine 10 are in the process of breaking though, but this has been our hypothesis for the last 5 months and we’re kind of worried the others might not pop through until well after she starts kindergarten. At any rate, she is still waking up at least twice a night or more to nurse. She still needs me to put her to sleep and she has (gasp!) the habit of falling asleep while nursing.

After talking with this mama at the park, my daughter and I rode home on our bike as fast as we could to read every review of the “Sleep Easy Solution” and then we had to re-read everything that came up when I ask Google to search for “Will my toddler *ever* sleep through the night?” Oddly enough, Dr. Sears and family always come up first and I often want to blame them that we’re in this boat to begin with. I read the articles out loud with hopes that my daughter will pick up on the idea that we’re brainstorming ideas to help her sleep.

I really liked your article on getting your child to sleep through the night, and I guess I want to hear about more mommies who managed to survive lots and lots of nightly nursing sessions. The thing is, sometimes she wakes up and cries and nursing doesn’t immediately put her back to sleep. She often wants to practice bouncing on the bed at 3 am (it’s the new thing you know!). Or she just has to cry because she’s so tired and can’t sleep.

My husband is confident that she’ll just learn to sleep through the night on her own. At tired moments, my confidence wanes. I want the easy solution. I want her to be well rested and 30 minutes of everyone crying-it-out for two days sounds very appealing sometimes–if we could all get some sleep afterward. Do 15-month-old toddlers need milk 3-4 times a night?

It figures that as I write this, my daughter is sleeping fairly well for her nap today (we magically made it over the one-hour-wake-up hump without me having to intervene!) and she slept fairly well last night. Her sleep is just so all-over-the-map that I wish I could bottle whatever it was that let her sleep 8 hour stretches and recreate it more often. As it is, it seems that we get a good 8 hour stretch about once or twice a month. And then, I am the one who wakes up at 2:30 am wondering where my nursing cub is.

Your daughter is older now–does she sleep though the night and did you continue nursing her at night for as long as she wanted? Dr. Sears suggests that babies still tend to wake up at night to nurse until sometimes between 2-4 years old. Zoiks! Sometimes I feel like I am nursing a gymnast and other times it’s like nursing a kitten (at least I only have one kitten!).

Thanks for any insight–
~Jennifer

Turns out I have written a lot about sleep over the years. Sadly, I am no expert. Reading back through my posts, what I can tell you is that I mainly kept up with the two night wakings until my daughter turned two, and then we began night-weaning. We had success off and on — if my daughter got sick I would gladly nurse her in the night to get that extra milk and antibodies into her. I also want to note that once children have night-weaned, they continue to wake occasionally for various reasons: to go to the bathroom, because they’ve wet the bed, because they’re sick, because they want someone to comfort them back to sleep, because they’ve had a bad dream or night terror or they’re sleep-walking.

As you can read in the co-sleeping section, our sleeping arrangements have changed over the years, and continue to do so. Right now, the 5-month-old sleeps with me while the 6- and 4-year-olds sleep with their dad. It works for us (and I should probably elaborate on that in another post)! Rather than have you wade through the archives, I have organized the articles on sleep. If you only have time for a few, read the starred articles.

My top tips in a nut shell:

- *** Don’t CIO.
- Talk to your child about the plan, no matter how young your child is. If the child is older, have him or her help come up with ideas (choosing a favorite toy to snuggle, picking a special sippy cup for water in the night).
- Change the bedtime routine to: nurse, brush teeth, jammies, stories, sing/rock/snuggle to sleep. Repeat the sing/rock/snuggle to sleep if the child wakes in the night.
- Have mom do the settling. Maybe it’s worked better for some to have dad do the bedtime routine and/or handle the night-wakings (and if you’re one of them, leave a comment! Some call this “Crying in Daddy’s Arms” or “Fathering Down”) but for me, my children felt more safe and loved and less abandoned by me if I did the comforting. I couldn’t bear to hear my child cry with her dad, and my husband did not appreciate when I’d rush in to “rescue” my child when he had been working so hard to settle her.
- Try using a particular song for settling your child, and then sing that same song again when your child wakes. Or use a tape player or “white noise” radio (very helpful if it has a sleep setting that will turn itself off).
- If it’s not working, then stop and wait another month or two. Be flexible and allow for nursing at night when the child is sick or teething.

Newborns:

~ My current experience with my 5-month-old in Sleep, Elusive Sleep
~ Moms of babies 12 months and younger can vent their frustrations by taking the researchers’ Infant Sleep Survey

Toddlers:

~ *** Starting the process of Getting Your Child to Sleep through the Night, written when my daughter had turned two
~ Celebrating 6.5 hours of sleep in Sleep, Glorious Sleep, when my daughter was two years one month old
~ a little humor to help see you through: “The Perils of Night-Nursing”
~ Toddler Swaddle, written when my daughter was two years two months
~ Progress report at two years three months old
~ *** My three steps to successful night-weaning without tears when my daughter was two years three months old.
~ Okay, I would still nurse her in the night if she were sick…. A short musing about my then 2.5-year-old waking two times a night to nurse
~ A brief bit of encouragement in “Let Me Reassure You,” written when my daughter was two years 11 months old.

Co-Sleeping:

~ SIDS, Breastfeeding, and Co-Sleeping
~ Poll Results about Breastfed Infants Sleeping in Cribs or Co-Sleeping with Their Parents
~ News debate about the relative danger/safety of co-sleeping
~ *** Advice on Weaning from Co-Sleeping without Crying-It-Out (Mom-to-Mom #9)
~ A brief history of my and others’ co-sleeping experience in Musical Beds and the Attachment Parenting and Breastfeeding Family
~ Study comments on how co-sleeping affects maternal mental health

Leave a Comment

What has your experience been with nursing and sleeping? When did you start night-weaning? When did your child start sleeping through the night (define that however you want, just let us know)? What are your tips? What worked or didn’t work?

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3

Nicole turned five months old this week (remember what she looked like at two months old? I could go on and on about “where has the time gone” and “blink of an eye” etc.)! Breastfeeding continues to go extremely well. I’d tell you how often she feeds except I have no idea! I nurse her whenever and wherever she needs it, and she might go anywhere from five minutes to three hours between nursing sessions. I know for certain she gets up an average of twice per night, unless she’s sick with a cold and then it might be three to four times.

We are still exclusively breastfeeding if you don’t count the one time I let her suck on an apple core and her dad let her suck on a pineapple slice! (Not something I recommend by the way, as the American Academy of Pediatrics advises waiting six months to introduce solid foods). As you can see she can sit up now (one of the signs of readiness for solid foods) and she’s definitely showing interest (hence the few licks of apple and pineapple!) but I will wait at least another month before officially starting solids. She remains in the 80 to 85th percentile for weight and length on the WHO growth charts. No one has suggested she start solids but I always keep in mind what my friend said upon being told that her exclusively-breastfed four-month-old needed to start solids due to his weight: “Well, how do you think he got this big in the first place?”

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3