Seeking Advice for a Toddler That Does Not Sleep Through the Night

Does she eat any solid food? If so, she may need to eat more so that she is not hungry at nighttime. Also, if she is taking daytime naps, you may want to cut them short so that she is more tired at night.

Best of Luck!

J.

hi, i know its a little late but... when you say she only breastfeeds, is she eating solids? if so, make sure she is eating enough in the day. she doesnt HAVE to drink whole milk at this age. it is recommended that breastfeeding continues until 2 YEARS OLD. of course, she still should be eating regular, healthy meals we all eat. in year 0-1 the diet should be breastmilk complimented with solids to experiment. then from 1-2, her diet should be healthy foods complimented by nursing when desired. i just dont wnat you to think you need to wean her, or she has to be drinking whole cows milk. its wonderful for you to continue breastfeeding past one esp since society isnt aware of the current recommendations.

so for your problem, i assume she eats food all day so i would ask, does she take a full feeding during these wakenings? if so, then she probaly is hungry. make sure you are feeding her enough throughout the day and allow her to nurse right before bed. if you dont think she is hungry, def try the water in the cup. have it within her reach so she will learn its there for her and will start to look for it. at the same time, consider a pacifier. dentists dont mind pacifiers if they are used only at sleeping and not thruout the day. since you can fully control how much she uses it, they feel it will be easier to take away when needed. she may just need the sucking action.

if she doesnt respond, and you are sure she isnt hungry, just console her with cuddling or rocking to let her body adjust to not getting any additional calories at night. wear clothing that is not condusive to nursing at night, and dont put her in a nursing position, but do give her the same nurturing you previously did. your goal will be for her no longer want to nurse at night hopefully preventing her from waking. i do not believe in any crying methods, ESP on children who have previously been tended to. im not sure how you feel on it, but would just want to make a point that she has had all her needs met for the last 14 months, so any type of crying method would be very tramatic, esp as you take away nursing. it would be very upsetting to not be able to nurse, so make sure you dont add any other trauma at the same time.

all these things will pass as they are just a phase. at the same time, and i know it doesnt make you feel any better, but all children have different sleep tendencies and there are many children who dont sleep thru the night until much older, while others pass out everynight not waking once. good luck to you with your daughter and your future plans!!!

Hi R.

What kind of feeding schedule is your daughter on during the day. Is she on solids. Do you have the same routine for her each day?
T.

Hi R.! It may be pacifying that she needs, and not food at all. Of course that depends on what you're feeding her throughout the day, but many children just need that pacifier to relax and sleep. And they use mommy for that when they are nursing. You should definitely be transitioning to whole milk as well. Mix half breast and 1/2 milk to make the transitioning easier. I started doing that when my daughter was just about 1 year old. My daughter has been sleeping through the night since she was a month old, so it's hard for me to say why your daughter isn't. I can just tell you what I did with my daughter :o). She is now 2, and I still do the same thing... My husband and I don't rush into the bedroom right away. They need to pacify themselves in some way, whether it be with a stuffed animal, doll, teether rings, music, pacifier, etc... You're not being mean, you're helping them! They need their sleep to grow and be healthy. We had the fisher price aquarium in her crib, and when she would wake up in the middle of the night, and we didn't go rushing in right away, she would turn the aquarium on herself, and relax to the music and or sounds and watch the lights. She knew what she needed. She also had a pacifier in her crib that she used sometimes. I hope this helped, and if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. Good luck :o).

I had this with my son many many years ago (he is turning 21 in September). It isn't that she needs to eat during the night, it is that she needs to suck to comfort herself to go to sleep. I finally broke down and followed the method in Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems by Dr. Richard Ferber. I know that this book has been updated over the years, but I swear by it. The book seemed to possess magical powers after a while. Any time I loaned it out to a friend, my son would have sleep issues. As long as I kept it in the house, he slept. It was rough getting through it at times, but as long as you stick with it, you will have a child that sleeps well. My son is still a great sleeper and so is my daughter. Good luck. I know how tiring and frustrating it can be, especially being a single mom.

R.,

I know how you are feeling. My baby just weaned a couple of months ago, when she was 17 months, and it wasn't until then that she was sleeping through the night. I know they are supposed to be able to sooner, but when my babies are nursing, they just don't sleep through. Of course by 14 months they should be physically able to. Sorry I don't have any advice. I remember what it was like to work full time and be up half the night with a baby. It's really hard. I wish you well as you make the transition.

D.

In my opinion she's not sleeping through the night because she's not full. I don't understand what you mean about being comfortable with milk. Wean her into milk, mix 1/2 organic milk and 1/2 breastmilk for about a week and then just give her organic milk. I have 13 month old twin boys and they sleep through the night and have been doing so for months and I believe it's because they get that bottle of milk just as they fall asleep. and then you might want to leave a bottle of water in her crib so that when she wakes up she can just help herself and go right back to sleep on her own. Good luck

Oh I feel your pain! I esclusively nursed my son till he was two. He also would not sleep through the night. I compared him to a one month old because he would wake up almost every two hours to nurse but also very mad and would cry cry cry.
I thought he had a sleeping disorder but his pediatrician said it was because I was willing to nurse him every time he woke up. Of course I fought her opinion on my situation but then decided to try weening him. I put bandaides on my nipples and told him I had boo-boos on them. It worked! It took about a month after finally weening him for him to sleep through the night. I truly thought there was more to his restless nights than just nursing but there wasn't. I also slept in the same bed(still do) with my son which made it more tempting for him to nurse. Another thing that worked for me when he woke was, I would offer him water to drink. He accepted it just as well as the nursing.

I also nursed my daughter for a long time at night. But I lost my patience a little sooner than you; the lack of sleep eventually got to me. And she started giving me a hard time falling back asleep after nursing, which was a deal breaker! But anyway, I started the process gradually by trying to hold, rock, and comfort without nursing, and then put her back in the crib. Eventually I think we got to the point where I had to let her cry. We actually did CIO at bedtime, because I used to nurse her to sleep then too. It is a lot easier to cope with your crying child when you are awake and have a plan than in the middle of the night. Once we did the CIO at bedtime, the night wakings decreased dramatically. From there I think I continued to try to soothe her at night without nursing, and as I said eventually would go in, reassure her, and then let her cry. I think it only took a few weeks and she started sleeping 11 to 12 hours every night without fail from then on. Everyone always says that once you do CIO you wonder why you waited so long, and I kind of agree. Of course, everyone has a different comfort level with it, and I needed to wait until she was older (she was 10 months when we did it), but it definitely increased the happiness and well-being of everyone in the household. Good luck!

Hi R., Have you started your baby on any foods? She wakes up because she is hungry. You can mix some cereal with your breast milk and also some applesauce or any fruit. One at a time in case of allergy. Then start some veggies, carots etc. I think once she is eating solid foods she will sleep longer. Best wishes, Grandma Mary

Your baby is waking up because she is hungry. At 14 months she should also be eating solids in addition to your breast milk. She should be having at least 2-3 solid meals a day plus a snack or two of fruits, juice, cereal... Breast milk is easily digested so this is not enough to sustain her through the night.
Making baby food at home is easy and inexpensive.

I would suggest stopping the feedings slowly. Maybe the first time she wakes up, just leave her for 10 minutes or so to see if she is truly awake or just making noise in her sleep. Then if she is awake, just go in and pat her back for a few minutes, tell her it's bedtime and that you love her and leave. The longer you stay up with her, the more she is encouraged to stay awake because she is getting attention. Or you can offer her water instead of breastmilk and she will get the idea after a few nights and maybe not wake up just for water. If this does not work, get Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weisbluth. This is a great book. It explains when and why your child should be sleeping and gives plans for getting your child to sleep at different ages. I did not follow it to the letter. It suggests letting them cry as long as it takes to fall asleep at night. But I was worried about doing this, so I made the rule that as long as it was not hard crying it was ok, and if it lasted longer than 15 minutes, I would come in and comfort him, but still not pick him up. Although I was a bit nervous about letting my son cry, it really was not as bad as I thought. The first time we tried it, he only cried maybe 10 minutes and it was not real crying, just whining, and then he talked to himself a few minutes and fell asleep. I realized that all my hard work at trying to put him to sleep was actually keeping him awake longer and encouraging him to stay up, so now we have a 10 minute wind-down routine before we put him in the crib. No longer. Each day was a bit easier and now we lay him down, he may talk to himself or occasionally whine for 2 minutes or so and then goes right to sleep. He is still young so he still wakes up once around 4 or 5 to eat, but he goes to bed every night at 7 without a fuss.

This was like my son. As someone else said, make sure you have a good, consistent bedtime routine. Doesn't need to be long, but just consistent. If you have a partner or someone else to help, mother, etc., have him or her go into her at night. Usually this does the trick--once the baby realizes she won't be nursing, she'll stop waking up. Because at this age, they don't really need the nursing as much as they need the sleep, but they are waking up out of habit. If you don't have anyone to help out at night, you could try just going into her and soothing her without nursing, or offering water. This works with some babies, but didn't work with my son. In that case, you have to be prepared to let them cry. It's up to you what you are comfortable doing. I recommend the book, "Good Night, Sleep Tight." It gives great advice for all types of ages and situations, and is meant to be a gentler, "no cry" approach. I found it very helpful, and I borrowed it from my local library, which was great. The author has a website...www.sleeplady.com. Just remember...do what's right for you, at a pace that works for you--both of you will be okay, and you'll move on to the next challenge!

I got my babies to sleep through the night by giving them the pacifier instead of nursing (and by reading Secrets of the Baby Whisperer!) You feel terrible the first night when you don't feed them but it does work. But since your daughter is older, the other suggestion of a sippy is a good one. Or unfortunately you might have to let her cry it out for a few nights. Once she realizes that she doesn't get a response in the middle of the night, she will hopefully stop waking up. But because she's older it might take a while. Good Luck!

She definitenitely does not need to nurse in the middle of teh night, she is not hungry this is for pure comfort, try a few nights of getting her into teh routine of not nursing her at night, give her some water in a sippy instead. Once she weens herself away from getting her middle of the night comfort from nursing she will find something else to comfort her, preferably a sippy cup or some kind of blankie or stuffed animal. Sorry it's not very detailed advice, but basically you just have to withhold nursing from her at night and be firm about this, the first few nights may be rough, maybe start on a friday night so you can sleep during the day saturday and sunday if you need. When she gestures for nursing tell her your milk is sleeping. The middle of the night feedings are also doing nothing good for her teeth.

Hi R., Congrats on being a first time mom. I remember what that feels like. I have a 5 year old too. About your little problem, I know its hard not to give in to our little one especially being a first time mom. She is over one year old and i guess you should have tried this before, since she is strictly breast milk, you should pump your breast milk into bottles and when she wakes up at nite, let her have one. In that way, she could suck and go back to sleep. I would also suggest, that you give her little food at nite that so that she is full and dont wake as much. she is big enough to start eating mash potatoes, or those gerber foods for infants. Have her have something solid before she sleeps that will make her sleep longer and not get up as much. Well it may not work for everyone, but it worked for me. I was only getting up once a nite for a bottle and I also had pumped milk into bottles for my son.