If you're being used as a human pacifier or they are truly hungry? Cathryn still wakes up to eat every 3 hours at night. Sometimes she's up after 2 hours, sometimes 1. I hate to think that she's actually hungry and I'd be denying her food if I didn't feed her. I pretty much nurse her when she wakes up, unless it's only been one hour. B/c of this, we are co-sleeping in her room. I don't want to disturb DH's sleep and she's pretty much an awful sleeper unless my boob is in her mouth, but I'm so tired! I don't know what to do. I don't mind a couple night feedings, if they were consistent. I'm too tired to tell how long she actively nurses for, I just fall asleep. I'm very excited that I will be reaching my one year goal for nursing and was considering going longer, but right now I just feel like quitting...I won't of course b/c she doesn't even take a bottle, but I feel like it. A five hour stretch of sleep would be so nice! Any help?
With Drex I was always really quick to nurse him as soon as he stirred. I'm lucky that I was able to sleep quite well while nursing, so I don't know how frequently he was waking, but if he woke, I'd feed him. Then one night one of the girls was sick and I was with her in the bath room and Drex cried. I couldn't get right there and he rolled over and settled back to sleep. I was like wait a minute, maybe he doesn't "need" to nurse so much and I'm too quick to offer. You might try that, or also try offering a drink of water. I also found that as he grew, he'd sense me in bed when he was kind of half roused and then want to nurse, but if I was not there in bed he'd just roll over and go back to sleep without waking fulling. At that point I started transitioning him into a toddler bed and suddenly he'd sleep a lot longer, up to 6 hours when he had peviously been nursing frequently at night. Remember that you are a nursing team, and you keep going as long as it is mutually desireable. You and she need to do what works for you both--sounds like right now, it's all about what works for her--you get to have a say too.
How much does she nurse during the day? At almost a year with a comfortable weight IMHO she doesn't need to eat every 3 hours. It's certainly reasonable to expect 4-5 hours. ITA with Meli- nursing is a relationship and right now she's calling the shots. I'd say it's better to put some limits on nighttime nursing than to just wean. You might feel much better after a few nights sleep. :hug:
I had a similar problem with one of my LOs, she just continued wanting to nurse every 2-3 hours through the night. After I had gone back to work (part-time) the nighttime nursing sessions became more and more of a burden and like you I considered weaning due to exhaustion but did not really want to. So, around 12 months we night-weaned her, very gradually limiting nursing between our bedtime and 5 am. We were co-sleeping so I temporarily moved out of the bedroom for the (gradually longer) parts of the night when we did not want her to nurse anymore and found that she woke less for cuddles with DH and the offered water and without the smell of my milk close by. I also worked on finding enough peace for nursing sessions during the day to compensate for the missing ones at night.
