Napping without nursing for 19-mo-old?

My 19-month-old son is down to nursing just once a day, before bedtime. We've enjoyed a nice nursing relationship and for a variety of reasons, I am ready to be done.

I have always nursed him down for naps. It was just easy and reliable, what can I say. For the last week I have substituted rides in the stroller, as well as a few car rides. The stroller thing is pleasant, but there are days when I have both my 19-month-old and my 4-year-old in tow. I do not own a double stroller and even if I did, I don't think I could push both big boys in my hilly neighborhood! Driving both boys around in the car just to get the younger one to nap feels wrong on many levels.

So, I would love to hear any success stories from parents who have transitioned from nursing for naps to some other method that doesn't involve motion. We have done a certain amount of ''training'' to get his nighttime sleep to improve and I just don't know if I can deal with having him cry during the day, and I don't know if it will work.

Sorry this is so long. Thanks in advance for any pearls of wisdom. almost weaned

Weaning 17-mo-old from nursing down for nap

Our 17 month old daughter nurses down for her nap (unless she naps in the car). I would like to wean her from this habit, and I'm looking for tips. She naps on our bed, so my first thought is to refuse to nurse her, and just lay on the bed with her until she stops crying and falls asleep. However, I am not looking forward to putting both of us through this! I'd like to know if there are any other strategies I can use to make this transition easier for her. She definitely uses the nursing to wind down and fall asleep. What have people done to successfully stop nursing down for naps? gentle weaning?

Getting 10-mo-old down for nap without nursing

I've been nursing my 10 month old down for every nap since I can remember, but I'm interested in finding other techniques to get him to nap. He will fall asleep in the car, but sometimes that's not an option for us. How I would love to just put him in his crib and have him fall asleep!! Any advice? Thanks Jeanne

11-mo-old will only nap after nursing - daycare starting

My generally easy-going 10-mo.-old sleeps through the night and goes down for naps when I nurse or rock him until he's practically asleep before placing him in his crib. But he will start daycare in a couple of months, and I'd like to prepare him to be able to fall asleep on his own for naps since I can't be there to nurse. At first I used the ''cold turkey'' cry-it-out method for nap-training, which resulted in 20-40 min. periods of crying and never seemed to improve. After 2 weeks of that, I am now trying the Ferber gradual extinction method, which seems to produce longer periods of protest crying of over an hour. It is day 3 of Ferber-izing, and my baby cried over an hour before his afternoon nap and over 2 hours before going down for the night (which has never happened since he was born) when he normally goes down easily even while ''drowsy but awake.'' I wonder if our experience of lengthy protest crying is typical under the Ferber program and how long it will last? I also wonder if I'm not being consistent enough since I bring my baby to bed to nurse after he wakes in the mornings (6-7am) where he sometimes falls asleep again, which goes against eliminating the nursing sleep association. I know Ferber suggests consistency eliminating nursing/rocking for all sleep periods. Am I applying the method correctly? eliza

By trying to change the rules at home, especially when (as seems to be the case) that's not your real goal in the first place, you may be simply confusing and upsetting your baby. Why not let her get used to the daycare nap routine at daycare? She is always going to fall asleep without nursing much more easily and quickly with anyone other than you -- because she knows that nursing simply isn't available -- than she will for you -- because from her perspective, the breast is available and there is no reason for you to withhold it! If you don't really need to change what she does when you're there, then don't. She'll be fine when you're not. Holly

11-month-old can't fall asleep without nursing

I am looking for advice on making changes in sleeping and nursing with my eleven-month-old boy. So far, he has always slept in bed with me. We go to bed together at night, and he nurses to sleep. It's the same for naps; I lie down with him and nurse him to sleep, then I get up once he's asleep. This has worked very well; we've had no sleep problems at all. Now, though, I would like to get pregnant again, and I would like to gradually wean my son and find a way for him to get to sleep without nursing and having me lying down with him. Have others dealt with a similar situation? I would appreciate any suggestions.

Nursing 11-mo-old to sleep, starting daycare

My 11 month old, former co-sleeping baby has become quite the little sleeper thanks to some guidance from the Weissbluth book. I nurse her to sleep for both of her naps and at bedtime. I also nurse her around 4:30 a.m. (even though he says not to, she's hungry after 10 hours of sleeping). I have never been able to put her down awake but drowsy as she still has a strong sucking reflex and will root when I try to unlatch her to put her down. My instinct says to let her suck until she's satiated but by then she's out like a light. My concern is that, while she can wake up in the middle of the night and get back to sleep on her own, she does not regularly have to fall asleep unassisted (she has on occassion when she woke up when I was putting her in her crib. But she's always furious and cries). We're thinking about daycare since she is so social however I worry she won't nap as I won't be there to nurse her to sleep. There haven't been many opportunities since she was about 5 months old for anyone else to put her to bed as I am a SAHM and dad works late. I'd like to hear from other parents who have had the same situation (nursing to sleep with Weissbluth baby) and what the outcome was. Should I start putting her down awake? Should I have our baby sitter start putting her down for naps? Should dad put her to bed on nights he gets home on time? Or should I just quit worrying about it and continue to nurse her and love every minute of it (which I do).

I never read Weissbluth, but I too had a baby who could not be put down ''drowsy but awake'' and who was used to being nursed to sleep most of the time.

His nanny had no trouble getting him to sleep. His daddy had no trouble getting him to sleep as long as I was not around. Even his grandfather could often get him to sleep, as long as I was not around.

Bottom line is, when I *was* around, baby knew it and demanded the boob. But when I wasn't, he knew that too, and was happy to go to sleep in other ways. Your daycare provider will figure out what works for her, and if she tries to tell you that *you* have to change what works for *you* in order to make life easier for *her*, then you need a different daycare provider. anon

17-mo-old naps fully only with breastfeeding

My 17 month old is still quite an avid nurser. He is finally sleeping for about 10 hours straight during the night, but with napping tends to nap for 45 minutes to an hour and a half. He will wake up hysterical and obviously still tired. My choice is then to deal with an unhappy baby for an hour or bring him to my bed and nurse him to sleep. I often choose the latter and he will sleep for another hour to two hours nursing on and off and wake up feeling much more rested. The problem? Although I often end up napping with him, I feel constrained and sometimes resentful. I have tried letting him cry a bit in his crib, but he is a stubborn little guy and it doesn't seem to encourage him to go back to sleep on his own. My friends' children take long consolidated naps and are obviously more rested than my son. Any advice???? Daniela

Perhaps you could do something similar with your child? Sometimes I feel resentful too, on the other hand it's such a wonderful thing that my baby wants to sleep in my arms. I know we won't have this type of closeness forever so I allow myself to enjoy it while it lasts :)

20-month-old will only nap if I nurse her

My husband and I have a 20 month old toddler. We've co-slept with her since birth and it has worked well for us. She now falls asleep at night with her dad after I nurse her and sleeps through until 5:00 in the morning. I can't seem to get her back to sleep once it is light except by nursing her. I also can't seem to get her to nap except through nursing or stroller/car rides. My question is how can my husband and I gently encourage her to learn how to take naps and settle back down at 5 in the morning without nursing?

Please do not write in to say that I should have sleep trained her when she was an infant or that she just needs to cry it out. We are happy with our decision to sleep a little less to ensure that our daughter never cries alone or feels abandoned. We are looking for gentle methods that will ease our child into more independent sleeping. --Seeking gentler solutions

With respect to the early mornings, is your toddler getting enough sleep to just get up at 5:00 a.m.? Perhaps you can teach her to simply look at books or play on her own for a little while until you are ready to get up, rather than trying to make her go back to sleep. Alternatively, you could just put up with nursing her back to sleep for a while longer; my son stopped needing to at around that age (although he still usually does nurse first thing in the morning, he sleeps late enough that I am ready to get up afterwards). Holly

If you are ready to wean, then establish a bedtime routine that you use whenever she goes to sleep. Read books, say goodnight to things around her room, whatever works for you. Just do the same thing, in the same order, every time she goes to sleep. Eventually the nursing will be come less and less important. It also helps to make your breast supply lower and lower by pumping, distracting yourself so you dont get let-down as quickly, again, whatever works for you. Eventually you have to just say no to the breast and give her a bottle or a sippee cup of water or a pacifier instead. Good luck! Julie K.

But the older your child gets the less gentle, in my opinion, your situation will be....there is no easy way of getting your child to sleep on her own without some ''training'' and at 20 mos. your daughter certainly knows you well enough to predict what your response will be if she makes a fuss. You should read ''Secrets of the Baby Whisperer...how to Communicate with your Baby'' (the title might not be exactly that, and I can't refer to it as I have lent the book out) though it applies mostly to teaching newborns how to go to sleepon their own, i think you would benefit from the authors ideas about respecting your baby while still attending to your own needs as parents. I think it is a much more realistic approach to sleep issues than either of the atttachment or cry-it-out theories. Good luck..... anon

Basically, I had always expected that it was my husband and I who wanted our son in bed and that our son probably didn't care much one way or the other. Turns out my suspicion was true. With baby number two arriving in two months, we finally truly decided that we would like him to sleep in his own (to make room for our second).

The following ideas are what I think made the transition so smooth:

- We finally decided that we really wanted him out of our bed.
- We talked about it a lot for a week or two before we put him 
in his bed.  And, we have always talked about what a nice 
wonderful bed he has in his own room.
- We slept with him in his bed the first night.
- We had invested (six months ago) in great sheets and comforter 
with cars, trucks, trains and airplanes -- his passions.  It 
made his bed really exciting to him.
- We had visited friends whose children slept in their own beds 
and showed him their beds -- he was particularly impressed by 
somebody's fire engine bed.
- We were responsive to any peep he made in the middle of the 
night and early morning.
- We focused on how exciting and fun it was that he was sleeping 
in his own bed -- not on how he was leaving our bed, etc...  We 
told him that he is always welcome back.  He generally joins us 
for 15 minutes each morning.
- We continue to tell him how great we think it is that he 
sleeps on his own.
- We talk about him sleeping on his own with anyone willing to 
listen: family, friends, people in line at the grocery store...

Getting 21-month-old to sleep w/out nursing

Since my baby was born, I've been nursing him to sleep in a rocker and then laying him in his crib. He's now 21 months old, and I've reached the point where I'd like to have my partner step in and put him to bed. We'd appreciate any advice about how we could possibly ease this tranistion. Thanks in advance for your help! Anne

Then one of us would take him to bed, turn out the light, and stay with him until he fell asleep. At the beginning it took quite a while (up to an hour and a half, if I remember correctly), with occasional requests for milk followed by a bit of crying. We gave him a cup with water for a while. Mostly we'd just lie there with him, sometimes talking quietly to him, sometimes humming. We found that most helpful was an especially repetitive kind of whispering, where we listed all the animals that were going to sleep, or all the parts of his body that needed to rest.

Eventually he could fall asleep more quickly, though I admit that at two-and-a-half someone still stays with him until he's out. We're comfortable with his routine now because it meets his needs for comfort and predictability and our desire for him to be able to fall asleep without us, and we got there in a gentle, respectful way. Best of luck to you. Denise

I also nursed my son to sleep until he was about 22 months old. He was still waking up numerous times throughout the night and I would nurse him back to sleep. To get him to start sleeping we went completely cold turkey. I would nurse him for a while and make sure he didn't fall asleep then my mother took him and held him and rocked him and sang to him until he'd fall asleep. Since we had been sleeping together until that point, my mother now had to sleep with him to soothe him back to sleep through the nighttime wakings. It was so hard for the first few days. My son cried for a good hour at times. But I think it really only took about a week for him to stop crying, the another week for him to stop waking up through the night. You should probably just try to stay out of the room at all costs. Your partner can go in instead and your child will be ok. We also played it out with stuffed animals. You just take 3 animals that will represent you and your partner and your child and you give them names that are similar to yours and you tell a story about what they are going to do that night at bedtime. It might seem like your child has no idea what you are talking about but they kinda do take it in. Good luck. Allison

Book Description
A breakthrough approach for a good night's sleep--with no tears There are two schools of thought for encouraging babies to sleep through the night: the hotly debated Ferber technique of letting the baby ''cry it out,'' or the grin-and-bear-it solution of getting up from dusk to dawn as often as necessary. If you don't believe in letting your baby cry it out, but desperately want to sleep, there is now a third option, presented in Elizabeth Pantley's sanity-saving book The No-Cry Sleep Solution.

Pantley's successful solution has been tested and proven effective by scores of mothers and their babies from across the United States, Canada, and Europe. Based on her research, Pantley's guide provides you with effective strategies to overcoming naptime and nighttime problems. The No-Cry Sleep Solution offers clearly explained, step-by-step ideas that steer your little ones toward a good night's sleep--all with no crying.

Here are some other discussions:
http://pub110.ezboard.com/fgeoparentfrm194
http://www.pantley.com/elizabeth/content/supportgroups.htm
good luck

2-y-o almost weaned, except bedtime

My son is almost two years old, and over the last few months I've been practicing the ''don't offer, don't refuse'' method of weaning. It's been going pretty smoothly, and we're now down to just once or twice a day. The problem is, those times are just before sleep (nap and bedtime), and sometimes first thing in the morning, often the wee hours and after a nursing, he falls back asleep.

In the last couple of weeks, he's been giving me signs that he's ready to drop those times too; he tries to fall asleep, but can't quite seem to make it, then askes for milk. Sometimes he askes to fall asleep in our bed, and I'm tempted if that will help him wean, but I'm also afraid that he will substitute one thing for another. I've tried to just put him in his crib after books and snuggles, but that sets off tears and lots of reaching for me and asking for milk. I should add that I don't nurse him to sleep--just to a deeply relaxed place, after which he can and does fall asleep in his crib. Also, other people (husband, babysitters) can get him to sleep just fine. It's just when I'm around that he has a hard time without nursing.

I hate the thought of just letting him cry it out in his own bed. I don't want this last stage of weaning to be traumatic. I would like to hear from other moms who have been through the same thing for any advice on how to make this important transition for both of us. Thank you. --CW