Every now and then someone emails me here and it is lovely to get those emails and I read them several times over and think about what a nice person they are, and how thoughtful it was for them to take the time to write to me, and how I will respond and then… I don’t respond. A combination of laziness, perfectionism (alright, mostly laziness), and parental demands interferes with my good intentions.
But a call for help, a call for my parental advice - that is impossible to resist. Even though, even though I know that parental advice is a dangerous thing because mostly we parents don’t want advice, we just want someone to listen to us and tell us that we’re doing ok, and anyway being a parent does not an expert make, and everyone’s situation is unique and each person is the expert on their own lives and knows best what is right for them. So with all those caveats, here is the email (with the author’s permission, let’s call her ‘Jasi’) and here are my thoughts. If you have some thoughts too, dear readers you’re welcome to share them, particularly if you are/were a co-sleeping, breastfeeding mother who regained her mind.
What I’m really in need of is parenting advice, support for my style. I have a 22 m/o daughter who has been breast fed and co-slept since birth. My husband has walked her down to sleep for nearly a year. We wear her. We discipline gently with firm limits.
We’re losing our minds.
She’s up 6-9x a night since 8 m/o. She wants to nurse all day and is absolutely livid if she cannot. She tantrums -wildly- more than a dozen times a day. Otherwise, she’s an intelligent, loving, funny, playful kid. We don’t know where to turn, at all. Local Mommies claim it’s the co-sleeping/ bf’ing that must stop. La Leche Mommies tell me it’s about discipline and consistency but are shy when it comes to details.
We’ve read all of Dr. Sears’ library. We’ve combed the internet. We’re expecting again in June and would like use this time when we can devote our complete attention to her. Do you have any advice or resources that I could search out myself for some assistance? Sorry for this strange and out-of-the-ordinary request. I’d just read that you have found co-sleeping to work well for your family and I was curious if you had any insight into our situation.
And you know what else got me determined to reply to this email, that “we’re losing our minds” bit? Because I’ve so been there and parts of this story are so familiar to me that it could have been mine.
I weaned my daughter at 21 months of age, but it had been a gradual process since about the age of 10 months when I started night-weaning her in preparation for a return to work (part-time) and a kind of homesickness for my lost sanity. So I haven’t totally been where you’ve been Jasi, but the co-sleeping and breastfeeding and general ’Attachment Parenting’ approach to child-rearing I can definitely a-huh with you over. But you are wise Jasi, to be cautious about the hidden agenda of some parents and asking for advice. Some parents like to judge just a teensy little bit and some parents will try and blame you and your parenting techniques for your child’s perfectly normal (but damn annoying) sleep behaviour. Roll your eyes (overtly or covertly but I prefer overtly) and never share your parenting anxieties with those particular parents again… and make no mistake, those preachy parents will have terrible teenagers… even if we have to corrupt those teenagers ourselves with our free-thinkin’ libertine children.
Jasi, I am pleased to read that your husband is sharing the gruelling process of getting your daughter to sleep because if your child is not an easy sleeper then it’s damn hard work.. and every fucking day too. Argh. Sleep is a lot about patterns and routines as I’m sure you know, and as your daughter gets bigger and heavier (and especially with another one on the way) you might want to consider shifting now from the walking/wearing her down routine to new bedtime routines. Judge for yourself if your child is mature enough to start learning to fall asleep through different methods. These books (click on the images below to see more) would be useful if you haven’t already read them as they contain realistic strategies which are also gentle enough to be Sears-approved. I would hasten one caution though, these strategies are rarely going to be entirely ”no-cry” but nor are they “cry it out” either. (Also, I know Jasi has visited this friendly little site, Sleep is for the Weak but for anyone else reading this post and wanting help you might want to try this site too).
Try not to be concerned about the tantrums (I reviewed this book on toddler discipline for Elizabeth Pantley, the no-cry author, that might also be useful if you don’t already have it). Tantrums are totally normal and not a sign that you’re ’spoiling’ her or anything negative like that with your parenting approach. Tantrums are just a sign that she’s becoming her own person, she’s learning to exert herself, to stick by something, to fight for it, and she’s also learning about her emotions - and how sometimes they can get on top of her and she can feel that she is losing control. Having said all this about the virtues and normality of tantrums I will come clean and admit that tantrums, even now still have the capacity to really undo me as a parent from time to time. Seeing your toddler lose control can be pretty painful for a parent and breastfeeding is a perfect way to calm them and help them centre themselves but if you feel you’re breastfeeding more than you want to as it is (and breastfeeding is something only you can do, which means you can’t lighten your own load easily if your toddler is completely reliant upon this method) then you need to introduce new ways of calming her, ways that she can learn one day to initiate for herself when she is feeling overwhelmed with emotions – stroking, being held, leaving the room for a change of scene, turning all noise off (TV, music etc), closing her eyes and breathing deeply, hitting a cushion, washing her hands slowly under a tap, having slow sips of a drink of water, sitting on some cushions on the floor and holding a favourite soft toy etc.
Which brings me to the heart of my thoughts on your situation. Which would you like to see less of – the co-sleeping or the breastfeeding or both? It sounds to me like it is the breastfeeding you’d like to reduce but correct me if I’m wrong. I’m going to tackle the breastfeeding but if co-sleeping is your main priority let me know and I’ll try and address that one better in a future post.
With regards to the breastfeeding, my guess is that breastfeeding by now is serving multiple purposes – feeding, snacking, cuddling, calming, unwinding from the day, connecting with you, soothing away pain or anxiety, and getting back to sleep. The fact that breastfeeding can provide all this and more is why breastfeeding is so damn wonderful but it also means that one lonesome, exhausted little parent can find herself and her breasts in charge of everything. If you want to cut back on breastfeeding then decide which of these purposes you’d be prepared to keep breastfeeding for and which you’d like to replace with other strategies.
Tell your daughter the new plan. Fortunately Jasi your daughter is at an age where she can probably understand most of what you’re saying to her and maybe even tell you herself how she feels about your new rules. (Let me guess, she hates them?) Keep the plan simple. No breastfeeding when it is dark, or no breastfeeding between meals, or whatever, and make sure you explain what alternatives are available to her instead. It would be pretty hard to have your ‘only snack’ or your ‘only way of getting back to sleep during the night’ taken away with no replacements. You will have to devise most of the replacements for her, but this can actually be quite nice as you think about what routines you’d like to set up for the two of you for the long-term. For instance, connecting and unwinding from the day can be done by talking about the events of the day while cuddling or taking a bath together. Pitch the plan positively to her, that this is something that is coming about because she is a bigger girl now, and look at all the things she can do that a baby can’t do (like feeding herself or drawing or jumping or whatever) and how great that is, and that bigger girls have crackers or fruit or whatever for snacks when they get hungry before lunch, not breastfeeds etc.
If there are certain breastfeeds happening at regular times that you want to cut back on then try and drop one significant breastfeed at a time. Give her a chance to adjust to the changes. The easiest breastfeeds to drop are breastfeeds that can be replaced by her favourite meals or by distractions like an early morning walk or a quiet evening bath. Expect some tears, not all the breastfeeds I dropped with my daughter passed quietly. Some she resisted and some she hardly noticed. I’ll be honest with you and say that she really cried and cried over the night weaning, it was quite heartbreaking. Once I decided to night-wean I stuck by my decision pretty well (with the occasional back-slide) because I knew that it would be confusing for her to go back and forth over my decision. For me personally I felt much more contented about this process because of our co-sleeping arrangement; I figured that even if she was very upset about not getting the breast she was still feeling safe and secure being with us in bed, the whole time being comforted and soothed by her parents and not crying alone in another room. But lets not get into the whole cry-it-out debate right now, that was just me, others might feel quite differently.
Lauca was just under a year when I started night-weaning so our circumstances were a little different to your own experience, Jasi. Chances are at this stage in your pregnancy that you don’t have a hell of a lot of milk being produced for your toddler anyway, and if you do, that it has started to change consistency in preparation for a newborn, this is a good time to start weaning if you’re not keen on tandem feeding down the track.
Finally, not all the steps you take with your daughter will be ones she is completely in favour of but breastfeeding is a joint relationship and it is about both your needs. It is ok to say no to your daughter, that is still consistent with being attached and attentive to your child. I think the important thing is how you say no to her - lovingly, clearly and without threats and guilt and making the child feel badly about themselves.
With regards to ending the co-sleeping… I feel like a big imposter even talking about this topic because after successfully moving our daughter out of our bed and into her own bed a while ago we have since decided to move her right back into our bed and lately she hasn’t wanted to know about her own bed. We’re not that bothered about it (ok some nights we are) because we’re confident having tasted the freedom of a bed to ourselves that she will one day move out of our bed and in the meantime we are quite enjoying having her in our bed. But she is now a peaceful sleeper in our bed and I’m not rapidly advancing through a pregnancy like you Jasi, so you do what you need to do.
Given all that, here are a few quick recollections on how we transitioned her out of our bed and into her own bed (if you want more on this let me know Jasi):
I completely weaned her first so when she woke during the night she wasn’t looking for a breastfeed.
I moved her onto a mattress next to our bed before she was completely weaned so she was used to the idea of her own bed.
We got her to the stage where she was able to put herself back to sleep when she woke up during the night with minimal input from us – say a quiet reassuring word, or a brief pat and then in the end nothing at all, just our silent presence.
We decorated her bedroom and bought her a bed and made a big fuss of it for her.
We used exactly the same routine for getting her to sleep at night except that we did it all in her bedroom now instead of ours.
We didn’t make a big deal of it if she left her bed and came to our bed sometime during the night, the important thing for us was her starting the night in her bed and, that she took any daytime naps she had in there.
We really congratulated her when she spent the whole night in her bed.
Jasi, good luck with getting a better night’s sleep. Remember that you’re doing an amazing job raising your daughter, no really, you are. Burn out and resentment are sure-fire ways to kill fun times with your toddler so while she may not like all the things you have in mind here she will ultimately enjoy her final days as an only child with you more if she is spending it with an intact mother.
Fantastic post, and such a sensitive response to Jasi’s heartfelt plea. If only this kind of forum/space had been available to me three years ago when my last little co-sleeping breast-feeder enjoyed his hourly wake-ups throughout the night for ten long months!! To add my five cents, I agree that the Pantley books are brilliant – they give such practical and reassuring advice and tips on how to handle change sensitively.
I also wanted to say that my kids (now 8, 6 and nearly 3) all sleep wonderfully in their own beds all night long, but are welcomed into ours if comfort is needed. They also sleep happily in other beds and houses, so I am convinced that our gentle sleep methods have taught them that sleep is not a scary thing. While it can start to drive you insane, I do think this kind of gentle parenting is a brilliant investment in loving and respectful relationships with your kids.
Good luck Jasi! In times where I’ve nearly just sobbed in the face of the baby (or thrown him out the window) I find it helps to think “how would I deal with this if I’d had a year’s worth of decent sleep and this was someone else’s kid?”. Because if I’d had sleep whatever he’s doing probably would feel so monumental.
I find absenting myself (just in the other room, or heading to the supermarket solo or whatever) is helpful in spacing breastfeeds out.
though I’m not religious, I have to say bless you for your compassion, Bluemilk. by that i mean that heartfelt kind of blessing you exhale when you see a genuinely kind response.
Jasi, we feel your pain. Parenting little ones can be very hard.
I don’t have any better suggestions- I think you tend to be given a few things to try, you try them because you need to try something or go mad and time passes, and you never really know whether your kid grew out of it or the advice worked. Every kid is an individual. If you keep trying different suggestions, you will find something that works. Eventually.
two things that stay with me about parenting? Firstly, It often makes you cry. Secondly, sometimes you can’t fix it, or you can’t give them what they want and you have to let them cry. Before I had children, I expected to be able to love them enough to avoid both of these. Now I realise it’s just the way things work and while the love I feel for my children is one of the sweetest things in my life, it isn’t a cure-all, a sleep substitute, or an electric force field.
This still applies with the seventeen year old.
Oh Jasi, I also feel your pain. My daughter, Lily, is only 10 months old, but she is just like your little one – feeds all night and feeds ALL DAY. She is also starting to display quite the capacity for throwing tantrums.
I like the No-Cry Sleep Solution, but have found that I am not ready to really put Pantley’s ideas into action. I think that you have to either feel that your child is absolutely ready or that you are so ready that they will have to be, because otherwise the commitment required to make them work just won’t be there.
Finally, I think it is worth continuing to trust your instincts. It sounds like you have been parenting from your instincts from the beginning and I hope that you don’t start second-guessing them now. All the hard work that you have put in has been an invaluable investment into the longterm health and happiness of your daughter. So whatever you decide to do now, I am sure that she will be resilient enough to take it and still know that she is loved unconditionally.
Good luck!
(Oh and it would be lovely to know what ends up working for you. I may be asking for your advice in about one year’s time!)
Best wishes with sorting all this out Jasi. And do block your ears to criticism from other parents. My girls were, and are, all sleepers, and I attribute that to just the way they are. It was nothing magic that I did. I think I came to this realisation when another mum at my daughters’ school said that of her children, numbers 1 through 5 slept through the night, from a feed at about 10pm, to an early morning feed at about 5.30am, when they were about seven or eight weeks old. She thought other parents were just weak-willed, getting it all wrong, whatever. And then number 6 was completely different – woke several times a night, wanting to be fed, until he was about 18 months old. She stopped criticising other parents straight away.
Just as a warning, this comes from a non-AP parent. I have no problem with AP, I just know that it would do my head in. I went out without bub #3 for the first time when she was 6 weeks old. This was for my sanity, not for her own good!
The only thing I have to add to what’s already gone is that it can help to remember that dealing with the sleep and the tantrums are both about teaching your child something. Ultimately kids need good, uninterrupted sleep too. At what age this becomes strictly necessary may be open to debate, but eventually they need to learn it. Also bear in mind kids are able to sleep through the night from 6 months (which doesn’t mean they *need* to) so you wouldn’t be asking too much from your child. Some kids learn entirely on their own, others really need guidance. If yours is the latter (in your opinion), pick the teaching style that suits you, but think of it in those terms.
And to me, there is only one golden rule with tantrums. Never give them what the tanty was about. Use whatever combination of distraction, calming and ignoring works for you, but never let the tanty *work* for them. If it is an effective strategy for them, they will never grow out of it. Certainly tanties at this age are perfectly normal, but if they are effective, kids tend not to give them up. And they need to learn that lovely manners and kind interactions bring good stuff and get them what they want, not screaming, kicking and yelling.
This is my strategy, and I know that I am coming from a different parenting place, but maybe some aspects might be useful to you.
I also applaud your compassion here, Blue Milk, and I don’t have much to add, although my situation is eerily similiar to J’s, but with a nearly-19 month old. We also put a double mattress next to our bed so that our son can have his own space and one of us can lie down with him to get him to sleep without nursing, and tend to him in the night if he needs snuggles. But we don’t let him up in our bed very much anymore, although he can crawl in if he must.
I don’t know if I’d recommend the night-weaning plan we implemented just after Christmas exactly, but it worked for us: I left for a business trip and my mother slept with my son each night I was gone. After the second night he fully understood she couldn’t nurse him, and he started sleeping through the night. Once I came back, I told him nursing was “asleep” at night and he’s been SO much better about waking up, and we seem to be in the clear with night nursing. So, I kind of abandoned him and it was harder on him than me because I wasn’t around to hear him cry when he did the first night or so. But I think that if your husband steps in and you become unavailable at night, you can acheive the same results.
I can see why this is a critical point to figure out the nursing and sleeping parts: with a new baby on the way, you’re goin to face new sleeping issues and some major jealousy, especially if you don’t want to tandem nurse. Good luck!
(Ok. Guess I did have some things to add after all. ;P
BlueMilk, I’m sure you’ve done a great service for many moms with this caring post, including Jasi. And what helpful advice continues! So many things I wish I knew then.
We co-slept and bfed until 18 months. The nightfeedings, as Jasi described, left me completely unravelled… but a mandatory work trip to Europe – the first time I was ever more than 10 minutes away from the little guy – started the process of reweaving. I came back from 5 days in Amsterdam with rocks in my shirt, and when little guy started rooting, I told him that numnums were all gone, but cuddles would always be there. As long as I held him close, cuddling, with soft words, he was fine.
The sleep transition took a little longer – about another 9 months – but it was helped by mama continuing to be the “on the way to sleep” companion. We started with going to sleep in mama’s arms, then being laid in a little cozy sleep nook. At the end of summer, we took B to Ikea, hoping he’d be interested in a toddler bed. And wouldn’t you know it, the cat and dog headboard, and the sheets with mountains, wild wolves, stars and trees won him over. He took his first at-home nap EVER at 21 months, the weekend after I set up the little bed at home.
As for tantrums – there is a technique that can work. It’s especially useful for physical children. Holding the child firmly on your lap, with her back to your chest, gives them the chance to work out the tantrum. Keeping your voice calm while not letting go helps the struggle end sooner rather than later, and lets your child know you’re there for them, even when they are beyond frustration and anger.
Goodness Janet – I hope you were able to express a bit so the transition was gradual for your breasts! For anyone thinking of cutting the kid off ‘cold turkey’, it’s important to look after yourself or you could end up with mastitis.
Re: Tantrums. We’ve started telling our daughters that they can tantrum as much as they need to (because don’t we all need to scream and cry every now and then?), but that they have to do it one of the designated tantrum spots. In our house, that’s their bedroom or the laundry room. If we’re out somewhere, we go home. My older daughter stopped throwing fits in public after the very first time I dropped everything we were there to buy and carried her out of the store. It wasn’t fun, but it was effective.
Anyway, you have my sympathies. Best of luck.
Thank you, Blue Milk for your time, kindness and thoughtful comments. Via your blog, you’ve helped me come up with a dozen new methods for dealing with our sleep dilemma.
Not having proper sleep was getting to me, but what truly caused me to despair was my lack of new ideas. I’m always eager to work on a challenge, but when I found myself completely dry of new ways to deal with our situation I felt desperately exhausted.
I also appreciate your concern for my request for advice. It can be a dangerous thing. But I see it more as an opportunity to collect ideas, hoping one strikes me as compatible with my thinking and our lifestyle.
I’m honestly going to give this a great think and discuss with my husband which we’d like to try first.
Thank you Blue Milk and responsive Mommies for giving me an awful lot of hope, encouragement and your wonderful ideas.
sounds to me like this mother has a daughter with chronic food intolerance.
the daughter she describes sounds indentical to my own daughter, now
almost 5 yrs.
we are commencing the failsafe diet in conjunction with a dietician and it seems to be working. she is sleeping better, more confident and more calm. less tanties.
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH DISCIPLINE, CONTROL, CO-SLEEPING OR EXTENDED BREASTFEEDING.
nice post. i, oddly enough, just posted about the ‘cry it out’ controversy. odd timing.
i have a 15 month old who still nurses several times a night and co-sleeps as well. i’m actually “day-weening” first since i can’t stand the thought of having to be awake with her while she screams at me and writhes around in my bed searching for a boob i refuse to give.
she’s also started throwing fits when i won’t nurse during the day. she runs away, finds an object to throw or hit and then waits to see what i’ll do. i go find her, get eye to eye and say clearly something like “you don’t need to nurse. you need to eat a snack. come eat some cheerios.” or “you don’t need to nurse. you need some snuggles. how about a hug?” and, oddly enough, it works. i just have to identify what it is she’s searching for from nursing in that moment. of course, it doesn’t ALWAYS work, but i like to think it does!
for going to sleep, since she has a hard time falling to sleep, i switched her over from walking to rocking. i invested in a very nice rocker. i stick to only rocking. and, if she decides she wants to her bedtime nurse while we’re still reading books, the light goes out first. nursing can only happen with the lights out and the bedtime music on. no nursing while reading books or anything. it seems to help her associate the final nurse with a heading off to sleep.
i don’t know if any of this helps, but i feel for you. i hope you figure it all out.
what a great post! the paragraph about nursing to unwind and connect made my nipples tingle and my son has been weaned for year! It’s just that impulse to nurture our babes so they can go out in the world and tantrum against the machine! It’s a lot of work, everyone needs a nice boob to come home to!
Chronic Food Intolerance? I’ve never heard of it, but I’ll look into it now. She does have terrible food allergies (wheat, dairy, eggs, nuts, tree fruit – apples peaches pears, honey, cinnamon). Very strange.
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Good post and good reply. For more resources, consider Attachment Parenting International at http://www.attachmentparenting.org. We have information available for the public as well as members.