DiamondAir

> From: Amy Spang <aspang1@...>
> Since the subject of nursing has come up, I wonder if anyone else is
> having a problem with very frequent night time nursing? My 16 mo. old
> wakes up to nurse every 2-3 hours every night like clockwork , and I am
> getting so tired I'm afraid to get behind the wheel to drive anywhere.

Oh, my heart goes out to you because I have *SO* been there! I remember once
I drove past my own house several times, I was in such a state of confusion.
There were times I felt out of my mind because of lack of sleep. My son woke
up about every 45 minutes to an hour for the first couple of years. All I
can tell you is that this *will* pass. This age - 12 months to about 18
months - seems to be one of the hardest for night nursings. A lot of growth,
2 year molars, a ton of cognitive development, I think these things all
combine to make babies of this age more wakeful.


> I
> can't keep him in our bed because we get even less sleep (our bed is
> small) and I have talked to people who say, "Let him nurse as much as he
> wants at night," and others (like the pediatrician) who say, " Cut him
> off right now or he will never learn to get to sleep on his own".


Well, I have to say that I disagree with the latter. I think especially as
unschoolers, we probably all are struggling to realize that we really don't
have to "teach" our kids much at all, they *will* learn it or do it when
they are ready, no matter what society or the "experts" say. My son sleeps a
solid 9 hours straight now and he was the worst nighttime waker of all time!
I remember well the day he asked for his own bed in his own room. I was
amazed, proud, sad, happy. Of course, he still comes in at about 6:30 am to
snuggle in our family bed. As others have suggested, you might consider
going to the mattress-on-the-floor model of sleeping. That's what we did,
that way you can add and subtract other mattresses as needed to accomodate
other bodies.

I know this advice *never* sounds right at the time, but it really is true
that "this too shall pass". Some things I found helpful to me were to
practice breathing or meditation during night-time nursings and that helped
keep me in a relaxed state so that I could more easily go back to sleep. I
also found that taking all clocks out of the bedroom had a very beneficial
effect. When I knew exactly how long it had been since the last nursing, I
just got more and more frustrated. Without the clock, I found it easier to
be relaxed about it.

Best of luck to you!!

Blue Skies!
-Robin-
Mom to Mackenzie (8/28/96) "What if there was no gravity, but we all held on
to something really tight??"
and Asa (10/5/99) who says "Odwalla!" (her favorite treat at the store)
http://www.geocities.com/the_clevengers Flying Clevenger Family