I’ve done that thing again where I have loads of notes typed out on my phone, but none posted to the blog! …Page swirls here…and brings us to roughly 6 months ago…
I’m going to break the Number One Rule.
The first rule of “when your child sleeps through the night” is “don’t talk about when your child sleeps through the night!” Because generally speaking, if you do, it will never EVER happen again.
But I’m going to break the rule. Here is my story about our night (weaning) terrors! My baby, my 2.5 year old chronic night-waker has been CONSISTENTLY sleeping through the night for weeks now! There was a time where I thought the constant night wakings would never end, but they have and I’m so happy and practically a different person for having the benefit of a decent night’s sleep!
Ok so, you’re obviously still reading because you also would like to reach the parent Holy Grail: several hours of sleep in a row. I will warn you though, there is no quick fix.
Our journey to this point started months ago, when I finally decided (after 5 years of consecutive breastfeeding) that I had had enough and it was time for me to stop.
The problem was Child 2 did not want to stop. In fact, Child 2 actually would have hung out at the milk bar all day long if she could.
It was starting to wear me down, I was feeling unable to join in with activities with Child 1 or engage with both of them because Child 2 would be so insistent upon having milk.
This worked fine when she was smaller, as I could tuck her into my lap and she would happily sit there whilst I played with Child 1. However, as Child 2 has grown, she was insistent upon kicking/pinching/hitting me during feeds. Not much fun for Mama!
So I decided we were going to drop the out-of-the-house feeds first. I would tell her, calmly, but firmly “no milk now, we can have milk when we get home”. This started well, and she was easily distracted when out and about, this gave me the confidence for the next step: dropping all day feeds.
Child 2 was a little more difficult to distract at home. I had to devote lots of time to playing with/distracting her and finding our new groove, leaving the housework for times when she was asleep, playing with Big Sis, or when Dad was home from work.
I often popped her in the sling on my back when I had to make dinner so that she could fill her need of feeling held.
When she inevitably asked (see also: screamed and shouted) for milk, I would reassure her that milk is for bedtime and give lots of cuddles.
Eventually, the daytime requests petered out and we plodded along quite happily for a month or 2 before I realised that dropping the day feed had meant upping her night time feeding and she was waking every hour or staying latched on the entire night.
I look back at photos of myself from this time and I can’t quite believe I was surviving on so little sleep as I looked exhausted.
One day, Child 1 had had a sickness bug, followed by Child 2 having the sickness bug, and a few evenings later I started to feel queasy. I quickly discussed with my husband that tonight I would not be feeding Child 2 and I would need his help to comfort her.
Luckily, I did not have the sickness bug but I was definitely not well. I spent the night on a mattress on my bedroom floor, whilst my husband tried to settle Child 2 in our bed. She resisted. A lot. A huge change to her routine and she wasn’t happy about it. I could have slept in another room, but I felt as though that would have been two-fold for her: 1) no boob 2) no mummy.
The next day, she was cuddly and clingy to me and I leaned into it as I knew she needed the reassurance of my comfort. At bedtime, I decided that we would keep going with the cold-turkey night weaning. I spoke to Child 2 all day about how she could have boobies to go to sleep, but if she woke up in the night there would be no milk, but she could have cuddles with daddy or mummy.
It was hard. It was a bit horrible. I have never been one for leaving my children to cry, especially when I knew I could fix her sadness immediately, so this was heart-wrenching for me. However. I was determined to reach the Holy Grail of a decent nights sleep. I knew I was giving her comfort, she was not crying alone I was holding her, or passing her to my husband to cuddle her.
It took 4 nights in a row, and on that 5th night she decided she did not want to sleep in my bed and wanted to sleep in her own bed. She has never ever done this so I slept badly, constantly listening out for her cries. When she did wake, I rocked her back to sleep, this also went on for a few nights, sometimes she came into my bed, some nights she completely refused and wanted to stay in her own bedroom.
After about a week of these broken nights, she went to bed around 7pm, woke at 11, I rocked her to sleep, put her down next to me in my bed (dad was working away)…and didn’t hear from her until 7am the next morning.
I felt like a Disney princess awakening from a wonderful slumber, with birds tweeting and colours in sharp focus. I had not slept for 8 hours in a row since before Child 2 was born (some 2.5 years ago!!) Needless to say, I felt invincible and vowed to stick to my boundaries firmly.
…page swirls…we’re back to present day…That was now roughly 4 months ago. Sleep is obviously still regularly disturbed (for example, Child 2 decided at 1am this morning it was time to get up and have breakfast and to watch cartoons until finally giving in at 4am) but I feel so much better for, most nights, having several hours of sleep in a row. She still sleeps in my bed, she regularly wakes in the night, but generally will just look for me and hold onto my face with both hands (adorable) or take my arms and wrap them around herself to go back to sleep (totally adorable).
The point I wanted to make here is no matter how hard and how deep the trenches may seem, EVENTUALLY they will sleep through the night. Not every night, that comes much later (in my experience) but one day.
Child 2 has just recently turned 3 years old. I’m still feeding her to sleep at night, but that is the only feed. She does sometimes ask during the day or night but I always gently say “no, milk is only for bedtime”.
I don’t want to stop feeding her at the moment, breastfeeding is an excellent parenting tool for me to get her to calm down and drop off to sleep as quickly as possible so that I am free to have some quality 1-2-1 time with Child 1 before bed. This is especially important when their dad is working away for extended periods.
When the time comes, I’ll drop that last feed. I will share how I approach that. In the meantime, if you’ve experienced similar with a strong-willed child, do drop me a line to share your tips!