Reddit mentions of Sally Weans from Night Nursing

I have been in your shoes being so tired I'm in tears. Except I wasn't pregnant so I can't even imagine how much harder it is for you.

Some breastfed babies and toddlers will sleep just fine after nursing to sleep, maybe waking 1-2 times a night for milk. But some will continue to wake up an excessive amount of times looking for milk. I have friends in real life who are experiencing both scenarios so I think it just depends on the disposition of the child. Bottom line you aren't doing anything wrong.



Night weaning can be a really great solution. My favorite approach to night weaning is the same thing /u/that_cachorro_life mentioned in this comment.

The gentle sleep consultant I worked with called it "Breast Request" and it's very gentle." The goal is to get them to fall asleep without the nipple in their mouth. This changes the sleep association of needing the nipple in their mouth to fall back asleep if they wake up in the night.

>You start to nurse to sleep like normal. Once they are nearly asleep (not fully) you pull the nipple out of their mouth. If they request it again by grabbing for it, relatching or crying you give it back immediately and resume nursing again until they are almost asleep. Then repeat by removing the nipple. Eventually they fall asleep.
>
>Eventually the process should get shorter and shorter until you can snuggle to sleep without offering the nipple at all.



I also tried cold turkey night weaning where my husband tended to the baby at night and I left the house and slept somewhere else. He did cry but my husband was there comforting him the whole time. Honestly though the crying was a lot for both of us to handle and after 5 nights of no progress we gave up. Some babies respond well to this though. And I'm mentioning it because yours might respond well if you're not in the house since she's already falling asleep for your mom when you're not there.



Another option that was successful for a friend of mine was to wear long turtle neck sweaters to bed so the milk is just not accessible. She nursed him down and then would just comfort/cuddle him back to sleep telling him the milk is all gone at night. It took about a week and now he SLEEPS THROUGH THE NIGHT. Magic right? This didn't work for us but it worked for her, every kid is different.



One other thing that works for some kids are the weaning story books like Sally Weans from Night Nursing

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Ultimately night weaning didn't work for us at all in any form. I can speculate why but it's not really important for this post. What ended up working was weaning completely. But we did that at 2yrs 3mo. I wouldn't recommend this unless you feel ready to wean. If so I can give you tips.

Good luck, I'm so sorry you're suffering. Reach out if you need to bounce anything off of us!