Frustration....Ferber?

Dr. Jay Gordon has an excellent article on nightweaning gently:

http://drjaygordon.com/attachment/sleeppattern.html

Hope that helps and you're all sleeping better soon!

Don't give in to the CIO crowd.
Let me tell you , kids will sleep through the night when they are ready.
My oldest Didn't sleep through the night but once before she was 3 yrs old. She needed me. and I was good with that. She's 10 now and VERY independent and has been for a long time. She still likes to cuddle and I'm good with that too. My son slept all night right around his first birthday. I did nothing different with either one of them.
How do you know she's not hungry still? maybe up her food intake during the day, especially dinner. Is she eating table food or is she exclusively breastfed still? is she getting enough sleep during the day, being over tired can make them sleep less soundly. Does she have a fan or white noise generator in her room, maybe some soft music on repeat.

CIO / Ferber method has been shown to be bad for babies
http://www.phdinparenting.com/2008/07/05/no-cry-it-out/
http://mybrownbaby.com/2011/12/cry-it-out-the-method-that...
http://www.ahaparenting.com/ages-stages/newborns/case-aga...

Ferber has actually backed off his method.

You need to just stop nursing her in the middle of the night. No more being a "comfort nurse".

I hate to say this because it's so hard, but you are teaching her to cry all night by letting her cry and then bailing her out.

I think that it would great if your husband would help out again. He doesn't smell like breast milk. If neither of you have the courage to let her cry without you going in to her, try this. Put a chair in the room beside the crib and have him put his hand in between the slats and sit the facing away from the baby. No talking. No picking her up. Nothing at all but touching her foot. She will finally lay down to feel his hand. She'll cry plenty but will feel a little comforted because he's in there.

It will be awful the first week. But if he doesn't pick her up or talk to her AT ALL, she will finally sleep longer between wake-ups and get used to not being nursed in the middle of the night.

I also would suggest that you feed her some cereal before you nurse her so that she is more full before putting her to bed.

Good luck. I hope your husband will do this for you. You can do it, but it will be harder on your daughter.

Dawn

Re-read Dawn's answer. This is pretty much how we got my daughter to sleep on her own, though for you, doing it at 14 months is going to be a bit harder. Your husband will have to be VERY patient and learn not to talk to her or pick her up, but yes, he should have a hand very lightly on her leg or foot until she goes to sleep. That way she knows her security is present but also begins to get used to lying in her crib to get to sleep, rather than being nursed to sleep.

Over time he gradually will be able to put his chair by the door and not touch her; then he'll be able to move into the hall just outside her slightly open door where she can turn and see him out there. That's what we did -- I moved from the crib side, to sitting nearby in the chair not touching, to sitting outside in the hall (reading my book!).

Cry-it-out parents will say that this all takes too long, coddles the child too much or whatever. It really didn't take forever and it made our child aware that we were always nearby even if we were not right there, talking and picking her up.

Remember -- infants and very young kids like yours are NOT yet old enough or mentally developed enough to plan to "manipulate" the adults with crying; they are just pure, raw need. If they are distressed, they want you to come, because to them, when you are not physically present, you have ceased to exist; they are not yet able to conceive that you are there in another room or to feel comforted by that knowledge. I think that crying it out only teaches the child that the adults who matter most don't come when she's distressed, and that makes a child more insecure -- not better able to "comfort herself." Of course, during the night after everyone's in bed, you can let her cry a little before you go in, but do eventually go to her if she continues; but if you want to train her gradually to feel secure in her own bed, I'd recommend the close-chair, far-chair, out-the-door bedtime. Worked for us and kept our daughter calmer and more secure.

When my kids were tiny, I didn't buy into the cry it out thing. Try teaching her that there's other comfort besides nursing. Let dad go to her and give her some water in a bottle. Leave her pacifiers in the crib if she's not against them. Go away for a few days on your own and let dad deal with the nighttimes. Have you tried not going to her right away? I don't approve of letting babies wail for extended periods of time, but she's not a newborn, she's a toddler. It's fine for her to fuss. Give her other options besides nursing and make sure she's eaten food before bedtime.

I am really suprised at how many moms make CIO seem so negative. Guess what.... babies cry and it is OK. Some people were saying she might still be hungry... but toddlers don't wake up due to hunger (unless they are truly not getting enough during the day)... they wake out of habit. My kids were always good sleepers from a very early age, but I did use CIO a couple of times when they sleep schedules were messed up due to illness, travel, hospital stay etc. It only took a couple of days of consistancy and they were back to soothing themselves to sleep. It does work, and it doesn't scar them for life! My kids (ages 1, 4 and 7) are all happy, healthy, loving, confident children (despite us letting them cry once in a while) :-)

you should try it-soon, she may figure out how to climb out of her crib-then it is very difficult!

Time to offer her water and tell her she is a big girl. So when she wakes, offer her water. After a few nights, she will stop waking.

BTW, the path of least resistance is always the path of taking some time to teach your children to sleep on their own. This doesn't mean letting them CIO. It means helping them develop good sleep habits. I'm a fan of the baby whisperer method for little ones. With a 14 month old? Offer water, she will scream, you will hold her, but don't back down. Hold her and rock her till she calms down, and then put her in her bed. It will be will better the next night, and then maybe the next night she will just sleep. My son only needed to be offered water once. He fussed for a few minutes and then weaned completely. With my daughter is took two nights. She continued to nurse during the day for a bunch of months after that.

My first did this due to my poor habits of staying by his bed to pat him. Pediatrician said let him cry it out and in a few days it was over and no more problem getting him to sleep and he slept all night. I never nursed my kids to sleep at this age. Don't rescue and it will end very quickly but you will have to put up with crying for a few nights. Just be firm and stick to it and the child will be fine and you will both sleep all night then.

This is how we nightweaned our kids:
Pick a three day period when you will both be home at night and your husband can either sleep in in the mornings or can live off little sleep for a short period of time.
Get a glass of water and put it next to the bed. Make up a second bed on the couch.
The first time she wakes up and wants to nurse you offer her the water instead. She will not starve by not nursing at night at this age, she's just thirsty and looking for comfort. Either she will be ok with this and drink and settle back to sleep, or she will fuss and try to nurse. Don't let her, keep trying to give her the water, explain to her is whatever words she understands that you two will not be nursing at night (I told mine that I stopped making milk at night). If she won't be soothed by you and the water, go to sleep on the couch, this is where your husband comes in.
He should offer her the water and cuddling for comfort. She is not to leave your room (or her room, I don't know if you are co-sleeping, we did) to come looking for you, in fact she is not to see you until the next morning. Dad need to be strong enough to not let himself be manipulated. He should calmly explain the situation to her and put her back in bed and help her go back to sleep.
lather, rinse, repeat.

Typically the first night is the worst, but you can rest assured she is not being left alone somewhere to cry and feel abandoned. We have suggested this method to a lot of parents that have told us it worked by the third night, as it did for us. You need to leave her with your husband because she knows he cannot nurse her. You should nurse her as soon as she wants to in the morning, to reassure her it's only at night you are denying it to her. Pick a time, ours was 7am. No nursing before 7am, or after 10pm.

I do not like Ferber because it advocates leaving children-babies!-alone to cry themselves to sleep. It's just as easy to give them comfort and transition them slowly to new nighttime behavior without having to sit in the next room listening to them cry themselves to exhaustion. It may take 4 or 5 days, but believe me, she will start to sleep longer and will give up asking for your boobs at night eventually :D

If you do Ferber....GET THE BOOK!!!!

I checked it out from the library and then bought it used. Read it all the way through and get a feel for what he is saying and if it is a plan that will work for you.

Do not try some made up from your friend or what not CIO "thing"!!

Read the book "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems" by Ferber...then try it, if it is for you.

Worked great for our family.

I don't believe in Ferber or similar "training". What I did was nurse my son to sleep, put him in his crib and then if he woke and cried, I would let him cry for a few minutes and see if he would go back to sleep on his owne. If he got more upset, I would go in and nurse him back to sleep. I also had an ocean wonders aquarium in his room that he could turn on himself. I would play the music and light as he fell asleep so he associated it with comfort. It worked for us.

What is the Ferber method? Anyways, with my first child, I let her get me up, like clockwork, three times a night until she was 18 months old. I was literally a zombie from lack of sleep. I got up on morning and said to my husband, " I cannot function like this anymore. Tonight is the night. She is going to cry it out. Well, that night, when it was "time" for her to wake up again, I didn't come to the rescue and me and my husband sat on the couch and braced ourselves for a long time of crying. Lo and behold, she cried for a total of 20 minutes and stopped. I never got up again after that and she stopped getting up because mama wasn't coming to feed her again. Whew!

With the second child, he didn't stand a chance of me being a similar puppet. By 10 months, he was done getting up.

Good luck to you. Believe me, they won't break if you don't feed her at that age in the middle of the night. I hope you gets some sleep soon.

My son was a bit of a fussy toddler. I always have had a radio playing classical music station in the background. Lately, he's been having some issues(I attribute some to growing pains at seven), so I give him a banana and a small glass of milk before sleeping. Is she on solids at all? I agree with the posts about feeding her a bit of cereal a bit before bedtime.

I also have a vapor pad scent warmer that I use with a lovely scent I bought from ZOMG Smells called, "Soft Lavender Cake" http://www.zomgsmellsshop.com/soft-lavender-cake-1/ They are hand made perfumes, and are safe to go into a vapor pad warmer. It's relaxing and comforting, and he will drift off to sleep without a fight. Two drops last for hours. Only drawback is because they are handmade, they take 15 days to a month to get them, but its worth the wait and the money.

Relax Mama, and take it a step at a time. Looks like you have a nice support network going.