If you’d rather read than watch, here’s a transcription of the video…

This week’s question comes from Dre. She writes:

“My 12 month old daughter wakes up every hour to nurse. I know she’s not really getting much, she just wants to lay next to me for the comfort. I try to give her the bottle, she just slaps it away. I’ve tried a pacifier, but she just throws it across the room. What do you suggest?”

Well, I would suggest that you’re pretty tired Dre, if you are waking up every hour to nurse you’re 12 month old! That must be very tiring for both of you. And so, I’m not sure what the situation is. It sounds to me like you’re doing a co-sleeping arrangement, where she’s sleeping with you and then just basically waking up every hour to have a bit of a nurse and get herself back to sleep. And I’m not sure if that’s something you want to end.

It does sound like you’d like to stop the nighttime nursing, at least. And so, what I would suggest then and I don’t have a problem with people that co-sleep, if everybody loves that. If its working great for mom, baby seems happy, dad’s happy, everybody involved is happy with the situation, then I say go ahead and co-sleep until you aren’t loving it anymore.

But if you aren’t loving this anymore, and you’re not really getting your needs met as far as sleep is concerned by waking up all the time to nurse her, then I would suggest you move her out of your bed. And if you have a crib, that would be the best place for her. If you want her to be in her own room, my advice is always start out the way you want to end up. So if you’re ideal situation would be, her sleeping in her own room and her own crib all night long, then that’s what you should start with. And so one of the things you going to have to work on is how she falls asleep at bedtime. My guess is right now is you either lay down with her and she nurses to sleep, or you hold her and she nurses to sleep.

So that’s going to be step one. You really want to break the connection she has between eating and sleep. Right now, its part of her strategy to get on the breast and start making her journey into sleep — that’s just the norm for her. And so you need to back way up, and start teaching her how to get herself to sleep without that help. How does she develop the skills she needs to fall asleep independently, instead of being reliant on nursing to sleep?

So I would do a nice bedtime routine with her, a bath, get her in her pajamas, have a bedtime nurse, if you like, but just make sure you work really hard on keeping her awake through that. So, keep the light on, poke her, tickle her, talk to her, do whatever you need to do, to keep the nurse just about food. And cuddles, of course, but not sleep.

And then, when you feel confident that the session is over, you put her into the crib awake. Then, the hard part will be, how does she learn to do this without the nursing? And so I would suggest because she’s very connected to you and the nursing, I would do the stay-in-the-room method with her, which is explained in The Sleep Sense Program, and that will be the easiest on both of you, as far as keeping you close by and being supportive.

You can do a little bit of comfort touching, stroking or patting, being careful not to actually pat her to sleep. You can do some key phrases, you can even try pick up for a hug and then back into the crib, if she’s very upset. But basically, you’re going to sit by that crib until she falls asleep in that crib.

And you can switch nights with your partner if you like, you can even have your partner do the first couple of nights, and then introduce yourself again later. If she’s really attached to the idea of nursing, it’ll be easier for her to accept the fact that that’s not going to happen if dad’s the one in charge.

So, if you have your partners help, I would recruit him in this as much as you can. And as the night’s go on and she’s getting more comfortable with the idea of falling asleep on her own, you will move your chair away, so move away to the middle of the room for a few nights, then move to the doorway for a few nights and then finally you’re out of the room. And basically that will be sort of a week long process.

And I would do the same thing for any kind of wake-ups in the night. You know, she’s one year old now, there’s no reason why she needs to eat in the night, for any other reason other than her comfort. So, I would go in, sit by the crib, careful touch, key phrases until she goes back to sleep without offering a feeding.

And the good news is, she will learn a new skill, she will learn how to put herself to sleep without relying on the nursing, and she’ll be getting a good night sleep, and so will you. So really it’s a win-win situation in the end. It’s just the process of getting there that can be tricky. So, I suggest you get started, I think it’s a great age to go ahead and make this move.

Thanks for your question… Sleep well!