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I hate breastfeeding
Nolan wants to nurse all night long. For the past two weeks I haven't had more than a 2 hour stretch of sleep. I know that there is a ton of developmental stuff going on right now, it's separation anxiety time, and that my 2 tooth wonder is probably teething as well, but come on kid...you're not a newborn anymore. I bring him to bed with us so I can sleep as he's a permanant attachment to my bo ob--but I'm still exhausted and last night I was reduced to tears.
I'm contemplating weaning, but it seems silly to switch to formula for 2 months for no good reason. Then the mommy guilt sets in. Not because I think formula is the devil, but because I didn't night wean my daughter until she was 14 months (I hated BFing at that point too). And didn't fully wean until DD was almost 18 months. And weaning him now wouldn't be fair. I already feel that the poor second kid is constantly getting the shaft since he's so easy going that he is less demanding that his older sister.
For DD we used the Jay Gordon method to night weaning, but it's recommended for older babies (over 1 year). Thoughts?
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Re: I hate breastfeeding
I am a nursing mom to a 6 month old. I am sorry I don't have any advice, but it may help to know there is a class coming up through the Breastfeeding Center of Pittsburgh for those who are nursing 6month+. It may help to get ideas and talk with others about your situation.
http://breastfeedingcenterofpittsburgh.com/services/classes/
Jake - 1.15.08
Liam - 5.17.11
When I was in spots like this with EJ in the first year, I reminded myself that even if she wasn't nursing she would still need me. I would still be up, trying to console her, and without my super boob power. She was a bad sleeper, and that had nothing to do with her nursing. This got me through the rough patches and we worked on night weaning when the situation was less dire and I could send Kev in to try to calm her first without creating a bigger hole in our sleep than necessary.
Anyway, i can totally empathize. And whatever decision you make is just fine. Let go of the guilt. It isn't at all necessary or productive. you are doing a great job.
Part of the problem is as we're building, we're in a 2 bedroom townhouse, so DS is still in our room. He can see me laying in bed. I guess I blame nursing because in my mind if he wasn't getting up to nurse, DH could comfort him and perhaps get him back to sleep.At least take some of the burden off.
Maybe I should try sleeping downstairs on the couch for a few days and have DH give him a bottle when he wakes up? Even if it doesn't solve the problem maybe it would give me the energy I need to power through.
I sympathize. I nursed Jude at night until he was 14 months save for a few week reprieve right around his first birthday. And I handled all the nighttime stuff so sending DH in wasn't an option. Sleeping in bed with him was the only thing that got me through (I usually fell back asleep while he was nursing and so did he, once he was done). But during the rough developmental patches nursing wasn't enough, he wanted to be active and crawl around the bed, too. And those sucked.
If that's not the case right now, and he's waking frequently to eat, I'd try the sleep on the couch/DH with a bottle route. If DH is game, it's worth a shot.
Ugh, its so hard isn't it? I would say yes try the night weaning but it may not help if its teeth & developmental stuff that is keeping him up. I would try to see if having DH get him will help - at least as you said to get some strength back. Hang in there...
How time flies! Caileigh (9), Keira (6) & Eamon (3)
First, no guilt about anything that you are feeling. It is impossible to feel chipper and happy when you are sleep deprived. You are allowed to feel annoyed and angry about the lack of sleep, and talking to us is the perfect way to deal with it. I'm pretty sure that if the nest had a reasonable search function we could find similar posts from me from 4 months, 9 months and 18 months. 9 months stinks.
Second, I agree with Amanda that this is more about the stage he's in than BFing. He is nursing so much because of all that he is going through and the nursing is comforting him. If he was formula fed, he would still be waking but it would probably be a lot more work to get him back to sleep.
I would definitely try sleeping on the couch - maybe not to try to night wean him or stay there the whole night, but if you could get a good 4-5 hour chunk while DH comforts him that would be good for your mental state. You could ask DH to try to leave you down there until 2 or 3am.
I hope that helps and I hope that things get easier soon! Hugs!
If you are interested in night weaning, Ferber's book has some advice on how to night wean which you can do alone or in conjunction with his STTN method. Basically you increase the time in between feedings each night (I modified it to every other night). If you do it on its own you could have dh pick him up and comfort him if it's before the time period and if it's after the time you nurse. If you do it while trying to StTN nobody should pick him up. DH would check om him using tge intervals from Ferbers book. Being in the same room would be hard though!
The idea in specifics would be...if he is waking up every 2 hours to nurse you can start at 2 hour interval. If he wakes after 2 hours since last feeding you nurse him. If he wakes sooner than 2 hours since last session you don't feed him and have DH comfort him/check on him.
Every night (or every other night) you increase the interval by half hour. So it would now be 2.5 hours.
We did this at 7.5 months. Dd was waking up every couple hours to nurse. We so did in conjunction with STTN method of checks and dh did those. It was amazing. After a couple nights dd started realizing that she needed to eat more before bed and "fill up". Before that she didn't eat much before bed because she could eat all night long. After a couple days she started lengthening the time interval herself. So say I was up to 3.5 hours but she was waiting till 5 hours to wake up. It took less than a week to night wean and a couple days layer she STTN.
Personally for us, nursing definitely did contribute to night wakings. I was just too drained to keep that up. Night weaning and sleep training was the best decision we made. It turned our terrible sleeper into a great one. And I continued BFing till a year (not sure I could have stuck with it if the night wakings that often continued)
I'm sorry you're going through this... as you know, it's totally normal (I'm in the throes of it, too, w/ Nora.
I didn't read the replies, but my first thought is that whether or not you night wean him, he's *still* going to wake up at night if it's due to developmental milestones/teething, but you'll have one less option for soothing him.
((hugs)) this, too, shall pass.
Joseph Henry was born at home on March 9, 2009
Nora Mae was born at home on October 30, 2011