Tara Burton is wondering if I should start letting Jo cry it out when he wakes up in the middle of the night (yes, the boy still nurses once at night).
My girlfriends gave me a lot to think about. I ultimately concluded that Josiah needs to learn to sleep through the night. Ellie was sleeping thru the night between 6 and 8 months of age and the only reason Josiah hadn't yet was mainly because of him & Ellie sharing a room. It was very difficult for me to let him cry in the night when his sister was in the crib next to him! About a month ago we put the kids in separate rooms so I KNEW It was possible - just wasn't quite sure HOW do go about it! I just knew I didn't want to do the CIO (cry it out) method - at least to start with. The next night I spoke with my mom for quite awhile and we came up with a "plan" for getting Josiah to sleep through the night. . .When Josiah wakes up in the middle of the night to eat instead of nursing him I would pick him up and try to get him back to sleep in other ways. Rocking, giving him some warm milk, and as a last resort putting him in his jumper - just no nursing until morning!
That was the plan and this is how it's been going... the first night Josiah surprised me and didn't wake up until 5am! I went ahead and nursed him and then put him back down. He then slept until 8:15
The 2nd night Josiah woke up @ 3:30. He was standing up in his crib. I picked him up and brought him into the livingroom to try to rock him back to sleep. I could tell he just wanted to nurse. So I warmed up 4 oz of cows milk and fed it to him from his sippy. He took about 2 or 3 oz and then laid in my arms as I rocked him for about 10 minutes. I laid him back down while he was awake. He did the "butt-wiggle" which usually means he's content, and he fell back to sleep on his own. He didn't wake up again until 7:15!
Last night Josiah slept until 4:40. I went in, picked him up and tried immediately to rock him back to sleep. Nope, not interested. So I gave him some warm milk again, held him for a few minutes and had him back in bed by 4:55. He was up @ 6:30 though!!
I have noticed a few things through this process. The first being that he is eating MORE during the day. Today all he wanted to do was eat - and he drank more milk than usual! The second is that I can't SLEEP after he wakes up. Both nights I just tossed and turned after putting him back down - aaaah!!! And the third is that I think my milk is starting to dry up . . . we may be finished with weaning earlier than I was expecting! However I feel fine with that and more importantly I think that Josiah is doing well with the transition. He still has ME and I think that's the most important thing right now!
Now it's off to bed so that I can be ready to give that little boy some love tonight should he wake up!
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