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

1. Everything You Wanted to Know about Breastfeeding, Sex and Breast Milk Fetishes but Were Afraid to Ask — talk about tackling a difficult, taboo subject!

2. How to Get Good Medical Advice on Breastfeeding — it’s not as easy as it sounds, or as one would hope, to get accurate and current information on breastfeeding. This post contains information I would love to pass on to every prospective and new mother!

3. Reviews of Breastfeeding Products, Books, and Clothing — looking for a breast pump, bra, sling, or breastfeeding book? This post links to dozens of reviews of a whole range of breastfeeding-related items.

4. Why Sleep Training Makes Me Want to Cry — This post generated a lot of controversy. People either strongly oppose or staunchly defend “crying-it-out.”

5. Gentle Discipline — I hope this essay validates the use of attachment parenting and gentle discipline.

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3

Bonding through Breastfeeding

The show “Young Moms Ask the Experts” focused on parenting questions. It tackled seven main questions and right off the bat the first question touched upon breastfeeding. The mother talked about how she felt disconnected from her daughter from the start. The husband explained, “Angie had difficulty breastfeeding her and that immediately made Angie feel like a bad mother.” Dr. Phil gently questioned the mother.

Dr. Phil: “You had some trouble breastfeeding?”
Angela: “Yes.”
Dr. Phil: “And you had some reactions to that emotionally right?”
Angela: “Yes. She didn’t want to cooperate and I didn’t know what I was doing and so the whole thing was just a ….” [her voice trailed off].

Dr. Phil expressed his belief that Angela had experienced some post-partum depression and said what a shame it was that no one recognized it and stepped in to help. Dr. Sears assured Angela that she was a good mother and that she simply had been “blessed” with a high-need baby.

Angela’s story really struck a chord with me (and not just because we have the same name!) When my first daughter was born, I developed post-partum Graves’ disease (autoimmune hyperthyroidism). I was sick for nearly a year before blood work at a routine annual physical diagnosed my overactive thyroid. I remember thinking: “Is this really what motherhood is? Is it this hard for everyone? Why am I so tired and stressed out and why am I not handling this as well as other mothers seem to be?” Lucky for me the one thing that was going well was breastfeeding. My daughter nursed well and breastfeeding gave me a way to feel that I was doing my best for her. It helped feed and soothe her and our nursing sessions were peaceful and restful.

The Angela on the Dr. Phil show was not so lucky. She felt shame and guilt when she most needed validation and support. I can see why mothers might quickly turn to formula if their efforts at breastfeeding make them feel like a failure. If only more mothers sought help in the early days — I’m talking within the first five days of breastfeeding — right at the start when mother and baby need help learning how to latch, and again a few days later when the mother’s milk comes in and another adjustment period takes place.

Angela needed help re-connecting with her daughter, now age three. The doctors gave her a few key pieces of advice:

1. When your child is having a tantrum, try to see the situation through your child’s eyes and express in words what the child wants. Say, “You really want that, don’t you?” even if you are not willing to give the item in question to the child. It’s enough just to give voice to the feelings and show that you understand what the child feels.

2. Don’t spank, ever. It causes distance between the child and parent and that’s the last thing you need when things are not going well. It doesn’t work and can be particularly disastrous with a strong-willed child.

3. Bond. Spend some one-on-one time reading, playing dolls or snuggling on the couch.

Self-soothing through Hair Pulling

The next question revealed an interesting link to breastfeeding. A 14-month old child had started plucking her own hair out on one side of her head and had developed a large bald spot. The mother had seen several doctors about the problem and had been told several different answers: it’s normal, it’s obsessive-compulsive disorder, it’s abandonment issues. As it turns out, the hair-pulling started when the girl’s pediatrician advised the mother to wean her daughter at 12 months. At the same time, the mother stopped bringing the baby into the parents’ bed at night. Dr. Bob said that it was simply too much to cut off both the breastfeeding and co-sleeping at once and that’s what triggered the behavior. The family needed to work on sleeping arrangements that would help the daughter feel secure, and the mother certainly could start breastfeeding her daughter again (the mother had raised this as an idea) or merely simulate “nursing” her by cuddling her at the mother’s chest.

Crying It Out

Parents of a four-and-a-half-month old baby disagreed about whether the mother should respond to the baby’s cries in the night. The pediatricians assured the mother that she absolutely should listen to her own instincts and respond to her baby’s cries. They talked about the dangers of letting a child “cry it out” including depriving the child’s brain of oxygen and flooding the brain with stress hormones. They recommended co-sleeping, using a co-sleeper next to the bed or at least moving the baby’s bed into the parents’ bedroom (which by the way is the recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics to reduce the risk of SIDS for babies younger than six months old).

Co-sleeping is the one issue on which Dr. Phil and the Sears family do not agree. Fortunately Dr. Phil was very respectful of his guest experts and simply acknowledged the difference of opinion. One of the best parts of the discussion was hearing Dr. Phil’s wife Robin say that she never listened to her husband when he said “you’ve got to let that baby cry”! She always listened to her instincts and comforted her children, so she was very glad to hear the Sears family backing her up!

Starting A Baby on Solid Foods

The discussion of when to start a baby on solid foods basically echoed what I said in “Starting Your Baby on Solid Foods: When, What and How.” The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends holding off on starting solids for the first six months. That’s best for allowing the baby’s intestines to develop more fully and to reduce the risk of food allergies. Once the baby starts on solids, the pediatricians suggested avoiding rice cereal (because it’s all carbohydrates) and instead choosing ripe mashed banana or avocado (as several mothers in our poll did).

Colic

I loved hearing Dr. Bill say that “colic” is a five letter word meaning the pediatrician doesn’t know what’s wrong. He said the two main causes of excessive crying are GER (gastroesophageal reflux) and food allergies. He recommended feeding the baby twice as often but half as much at each feeding, and holding the baby upright after a feeding. The other pediatricians noted that if the mother of a colicky baby is breastfeeding, up to half of the cases of excessive crying are attributable to dairy in the mother’s diet. Another culprit could be wheat. (If a breastfeeding mother suspects food allergies as a cause of colic, she should talk to her doctor and consider going on an elimination diet). I’ve gone on an elimination diet before and it’s not easy. If it helps a hurting baby though it’s more than worth it. Never give up trying to find a cause for colic.

The other recommendation for colic was to hold the baby a lot (no surprise there). Martha showed a mother how to do what my friends used to call a “cocktail shaker” hold in which they’d cradle their son on one arm and gently bounce him up and down to the rhythm of a constant beat.

All in all I thought the show was very interesting and informative and not nearly as controversial as I thought it might be. It was great to hear that Dr. Phil plans to have the Sears family back on the show to answer more questions in the future.

Did you watch? What were your thoughts on the show?

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3