u/shortasiam

We spent some time talking with my toddler today about weaning and how she's getting older and not having milk, how she gets big girl hugs now instead etc.

She had a car nap to take the edge off the cumulative sleep debt.

She was also majorly teething today. All in all it took about 2 hours 15 mins, but she didn't reach for milk, didn't try and leave the room, didn't have more than one crying jag and eventually got tired and moved to her pillow independently and asked for hugs!

Huge wins today!

She has been accumulating a significant sleep debt over the last 2 days so we started a little earlier and also thought my husband should give it a try and may have more luck. She cried mostly off and on for 45 mins with him. I stepped in and calmed her down and then he left. She got to a point where she was rolling around in the bed asking me to help her sleep but just couldn't settle. Eventually she was just walking in circles doing the "peel bananas" song on repeat.

She has a weighted stuffy so I had her through that around for a while and get some sensory release and it did calm her down and she was at least laying down again.. but we soon as sleep starts to creep in she's jolting up.

Ended up taking her downstairs (for the third night in a row) at the 3 hour mark and within 10 mins she asleep in my arms.

She really is internationally keeping herself from sleep and as soon as she puts her guard down she's fast asleep.

Let's hope this extinction burst fades soon because I don't know how much more I can take.

I've got her in bed and lying down within 30 mins now instead of two hours, but she really seems to be understanding now that milk isn't coming back and fighting the actual sleep harder. Groping for me more and crying to go back to our bed where we coslept until about a month ago (I'm still sleeping with her in her new room/bed). I can feel the grief. I brought her down and as soon as we changed locations and she could give up the 'fight' she passed right out.

She settled a lot faster tonight and was in bed attempting to sleep by the 1.5 hour mark. She didn't ask for milk but she did "play" with me a lot. Tapping on the outside of my shirt pinching through my shirt etc.

Teething was a problem tonight so despite her being calm willing to sleep she didn't actually fall asleep until about 2.5 hours in. She was tossing and turning and looking for milk in her sleep from about 5 am onwards likely from the pain.

I think she was dealing with some teething pain, despite painkillers she couldn't get into a deep sleep. And it's Victoria Day here so as soon as she got close damn fireworks started going off.

Ended up bringing her down stairs and putting on Cinderella and she fell asleep in my arms around 10 pm. For the record started bedtime around 730.

She fell asleep in the car on the way home and survived the transfer but woke up after a few hours really distressed. She was probably expecting milk as usual and was crying really hard and asking for hugs but not letting me touch her or comfort her.

She eventually calmed down and wanted to only sleep on top of me and didn't settle until I was settled and sleeping next to her and she had both hands up the back of my shirt. She woke up maybe another hour or two later and rooted a little trying to lift my shirt for milk then went back to sleep.

How I'm doing? Amazing. They say nursing is like running a marathon everyday in terms of metabolic energy? Well I have so much energy, I'm getting more than 4 consecutive hours a night consistently, and I'm not starving all the time.

I feel so refreshed and motivated!

Took her out for the evening expecting her to sleep in the car on the way home (as she typically would have pre-weaning) she did not sleep. So because of this we started bedtime later than expected.

She took about 1 hour 45 mins but she fought a lot harder, kept trying to escape the room and asked for milk several times and needed extra cuddles.

Overall took less time than day 1 and 2.

I'm trying to wean my daughter (likely neurodivergent). She is down to no naps, only has milk before bed and occasionally in the middle of the night if she is having teething pain. I'm able to put her back to sleep in the middle of the night without milk as long as she has some sleep inertia.

She doesn't seem too emotionally attached to the breast milk and doesn't usually ask for it it's mostly out of sight out of mind. She does associated with sleep sometimes and refuses it if she doesn't want to go to bed.

She hates sleep and it always trying to fight it. She's on a floor bed in her own room that she moved into a few weeks ago and I'm still sleeping in there with her at night.

I've tried keeping her in the bed but she gets up wanders looks for books in the room tries to leave the room. She's able to turn almost anything into a distraction. If I try to prevent her from leaving the bed she gets hysterical and cries. I've tried waiting it out in hopes that she just tires herself out and goes to sleep but rather than tie herself out and getting into the bed or sleeping on the floor she will just leave the room.

I'm also worried that when I let her try and sleep on her own she gets progressively more tired and more manic and then it becomes even less likely that she'll fall asleep on her own.

I haven't been able to do more than one or two days in a row of attempting to wean because of these issues. Am I part of the problem? Do I just need to keep doing it consistently and eventually she'll stop trying to distract herself and allow herself to sleep? How long did it take for your toddlers to learn to sleep on their own without milk the first few nights? How many hours?

She is able to fall asleep in the car so we have used that on occasion.

My next step is to remove all the toys and books from her room so that she doesn't have anything she can distract herself with. Bring a cup of warm milk up with me in hopes that it will help her to calm down but then I run into the issue of teeth brushing as she's already brushed her teeth and if I brush her teeth after the warm milk it kind of defeats the purpose of her using that warm milk to power down.

The issue here doesn't seem to be her wanting milk or her asking for milk or her being emotionally attached to the milk but rather just not knowing how to fall asleep without it.