Breaking MOTN nursing expectation
TLDR; ready to be done pumping and nursing, not sure how I’ll get my baby to resettle overnight without the boob
I’m ready to wean from pumping and breastfeeding (LO is 10.5m) but don’t know how nights are going to work. He gets all pumped milk in bottles during the day since 8 months (his sudden preference, to my dismay) and I have kept this up so I can still nurse back to sleep overnight or in the morning if he’s up for it. It brought me joy, but now I’m starting to hate it and want to be more present.
A few things:
- we never really had to sleep train, LO is just naturally a decent sleeper who falls asleep on his own all the time and we nurtured this skill early on. Nights have ebbed and flowed over the past year, but never horrible. The past 6 weeks were only waking once for a feed, usually a snooze feed between 5 and 6am
- I have always nursed overnight for wakes, with a handful of times he has woken up at a weird time and a paci or cuddle got him back asleep.
- My husband is the best, but works in healthcare and also takes overnight call some days, so nights are primarily on me, but he’s willing to help when he has days off
In the past 4 months, I have not been able to put LO back in their crib without nursing after a night wake. Last weekend we went to the lake and he needed some extra help overnight, but now we are home and he’s waking up at 12:45 for the first time in weeks. Back to 2-3 wakes. Obviously I want to get back into our 1 wakes rhythm and not create a habit at 12:45, and want to be done breastfeeding without blowing through my freezer stash at night. Last night I spent an hour trying to put him back in his crib from 12:50-1:50 but he wakes up and wails every. Single. Time. He is out and content the second I pick him up, but can’t leave. I’m feeling defeated and ready to be done with the pump at this point, it’s starting to sap my joy. Any advice or suggestions appreciated!
for reference, we are currently on an about 3/3.5/3.75 schedule with 2.5-2.75 hours of naps and it worked great before this weekend trip