Anxiety about weaning

Question

Hi, my baby is 7 mo and breastfeeding AND cosleeping. He still wakes up several times a night and nurses. I am planning on nursing him until he can drink whole milk at one year old, but I'm having some anxiety about whether it will be incredibly hard to wean him. He is on solid foods too but only eats very solids per day b/c he just doesn't want too much.

I always thought that once he began sleeping through the night, I would transition him into his own crib in his own room. This hasn't happened yet! I'm getting anxiety because I don't have a plan!

Please help me with some advice on how to wean GRADUALLY (by 12 months old) and also perhaps get him into his own crib.

Answer 1

Sorry, I don't breastfeed so I have no clue on that.

As far as getting him to sleep in his own bed at night.  Try having him nap in it for a week or two to get used to the bed if he isn't napping in it already.  Other than that the only thing to do is to just do it.  I don't think there are any magic tricks to getting them to sleep in their cribs.  If he's waking up to eat in the middle of the night already it shouldn't be a big issue if he wakes in the crib.  

To me it seems if he's sleeping in his own bed and knows the milk isn't there at his convience he might sleep longer.  But like I said, I know nothing about breastfeeding so...

Answer 2

I answered a similar question a couple of days ago, so I'm going to give you a similar answer.  Consider finding different options for him instead of nursing at night, which can help him "sleep through the night".  Babies really don't sleep through the night until they're 2-3 years old.  Before that Mom just sleeps through the night because Baby can put himself back to sleep with out mom.

If your baby is nursing frequently at night it's probably not all for hunger.  It sounds like right now he is nursing also for 2 reasons at night: thirst and comfort.

Most babies still need to drink something at night because they wake thirsty. Even as adults we do the same thing some times. One idea could be to use a bottle or sippy of water at night and encourage him to drink from it instead. There have been nights when my baby (now 16 months) has drank an entire 8 ounces of water between when he went to sleep and woke up. That means that drinking something at night is important and shouldn't be stopped.

I'm guessing that he's used to nursing himself to calm and comfort himself back to sleep when he does wake up. Babies go through sleep cycles and wake several times during the night until they're preschoolers. The ones that "sleep through the night" are the ones that can manage to keep themselves from waking all the way up and who can help themselves fall back asleep. One idea could be trying to substitute some other form of comfort for nursing. Since he likes to suck himself to sleep you could try killing two birds with one stone and use his bottle or sippy of water to help himself fall back asleep. Another option could be a pacifier or his thumb. No, you can't really teach thumb sucking, but if he has a natural tendency to do it, you could use it to your advantage. You could also try just snuggling instead of nursing, or letting him have a special snuggly stuffed animal.

Your goal is to try to get him to find different options to take care of his night needs besides nursing. Make the transition easy and don't force it, but encourage alternatives. You may want to take a week or two and let him have both, nursing and the "replacement" so that he can start to associate the replacements with the results of nursing.  Then he won't need you to help him sleep at night and he can be moved into his own bed when ever you want.

Don't worry about him not eating much solid food yet.  Over the next few months he will, especially if you let him feed himself a variety of foods.  Babies are designed to just use solids as practice until they get closer to 12 months.  In a few months he'll start to rely on them for his nutrition, but right now they're just fun.  

One idea for you right now could be make some modifications to your goal of waiting until he can have whole milk to wean.  Right now you can think about it as weaning him from breast milk onto solids and water, nurse occasionally, and then add in cows milk later.  Cows milk isn't what's going to replace breast milk; solids and something to drink will.

What ever you do you're going to do great!

Answer 3

"I'm getting anxiety because I don't have a plan!"

So, make your plan be to go with the flow and do what works best for your child.

It's early (despite what neighbours, etc will tell you) to think about sleeping through the night at 7mo. It's certainly early to start worrying about weaning, too. Why worry? What's the rush? Cow's milk doesn't really offer any benefits to a 1yo, but your milk offers plenty.

I haven't tried its methods, but "The No-Cry Sleep Solution" is a worthwhile read: http://www.amazon.com/No-Cry-Sleep-Solut...

Also of interest: http://www.naturalchild.com/guest/norma_...

http://kellymom.com/parenting/sleep/inde...

http://kathydettwyler.org/detsleepthroug...

Babies are just not meant to sleep through the night, to sleep without Mum, or to stop nursing early; you're setting yourself up for fights with your child, and why do that?

Answer 4

As far as the weaning goes I would start pumping the breast milk and start him getting him on the bottle.  This should make the transition to whole milk a lot easier on the both of you. (they make nipples that resembles the mother's breast.)  As far as the co-sleeping I can't help you there, was always afraid I'd roll over on to the baby.  Good luck.