11 Month Old No Longer Sleeping Through the Night

He may be using you for a pacifier. At 11 mos he should not need to wake to eat, but he is waking and using you to get himself back to sleep. Do not nurse him when he wakes, rub his back if you have to but try not to nurse him back to sleep.

It won't be easy but if you want some peace, he should be able to go all night without needing food. Babies wake, several times during the night, that is normal, the difference is he is used to waking up and you puttting him back to sleep at the breast.

The year mark is a great time to wean him all together and just my suggestion for you to get some rest. He doesn't need breast milk any longer at the year mark for nutrition as he should be getting most of what he needs from solids now.

Try just not nursing him back to sleep, it may be tough a few nights but giving him the gift of learning to fall back to sleep on his own will help you both big time! It is a gift to break these bad habits now, instead of later. He could also be teething and using nursing to soothe his gums, try seeing if he is and try motrin before bedtime. That may help you encourage him to sleep all night.

he's probably nursing for comfort. what i did was let my son cry. he wakes up no earlier than 4:am, which was 5:am before the time change, so i think that's ok.

Some children can go just fine during the night without milk. Some children do need to nurse at night, especially children that are underweight, or extremely busy during the day. However, since your son was sleeping through the night without any problems, I would guess that he just prefers to spend some time cudding with mom and getting some yummy milk rather than hanging out alone in his bed at night. I think you are probably safe to start working on night weaning. If he goes completely nuts over it, you might consider that he has a need for you at night - if not a physical need for the milk, than perhaps an emotional need for his mother.

This is about the age that we night weaned our daughters. For my youngest, I just told her that it was night-night time. I told her mommy was going night-night, daddy was going night-night, sister was going night-night, and milkies were going night-night. I told her when it was light outside, Mommy would come get her out of her bed and she could have milk. I was utterly amazed that she got it! She never fought me on it, just laid down and went to bed.

My best advice is to see how your son reacts. Give it your best shot for a week or two. If it is just a habit, he should be able to break it. However, if he just can't get it, then this may just be a phase where he needs his mom more than normal. If that is it, he will grow out of it.

Best of luck,
S.

I think he might be hungry. Is he on solids? He sounds like he's just hungry enough to be on solids, which will hold him through more sleep time.