Needing Suggestions for How to Get Baby to Soothe Himself

Our son used me as his pacifier too. He nursed 2 to 5 times a night until I weaned him at 18 months. I know that some of those feedings were definitely comfort feedings... But my milk dried up at 6 months with our first so I chereished that time with our 2nd.... Because breastmilk digests easier and faster, I would think once or twice a night would be the most he would truely need to be fed. But if I were you, I wouldn't worry about getting him to self soothe and just nurse him and comfort him.

Nursing literally lessons the amount of pain a kid feels. So if he wants to nurse all the time that is because it is not only a comfort, but a physical pain relief.

His desire to nurse will lessen if he has other pain relief. When my babies are sick- it feels like I shouldn't even bother putting my breasts away between nursing. :)

Show him that you are there for him, give him his suck and at least your ears won't hurt.

good luck

_ mom to 5 - I have nursed almost 10 years of my life.

Read Night Time Parenting by Dr. Sears. It saved our lives! The info is also available on askdrsears.com

Baby is needing you and he is still very little. Keep him close and nurse him as much as possible. This phase will pass and you will be onto another stage of something sooner than you think.

The days (or nights in this case) are long, but the years are short. Enjoy your little one...

Good luck,
J.

nurse on demand. at this point, if you are leaning toward weaning at some point, you can implement a "dont ask dont refuse" policy. dont ever out of nowhere offer to nurse, but dont refuse him when he wants it either

our son coslept with us and he nursed a lot at night at times too. he was between 15-17 months when he stopped waking so often at night. its better policy to comfort your baby when he is crying than leave him alone to cry, you can already see that it doesnt work, but you only know which cry is going to escalate, and which one is going to wimper off to sleep.

self soothing isnt something that babies learn, it is something that is nurtured. we did a lot of cosleeping, and after taht 15-17 months he slept in his crib in our room until yesterday :P he will be three on the 28th. and i dont regret a second; he went right to bed last night, just said he wanted to go to bed, and stayed in his crib (converted to toddler bed) and went to sleep. he did the same thing at nap time today. so waiting until he was ready was PERFECT, we have had NO struggles at bedtime, EVER in his whole 3 years of life. we have NEVER had bedtime struggles. i swear it. so do what you gotta do, it lasts for such a short time, that it will be so worth it.

but really, inside, you know what your son needs. you have the instincts. just listen to them! :) trust yourself! :)

There is no rule, he should be nursing however often he needs to! They key for me isn't how often I get woken up, but how quickly I can get back to sleep! For me that means keeping him close and getting him nursed before either of us wakes up all the way!

And remember he is NOT using YOU as an artifical pacifier, he's using the pacifier as an artificial YOU!

we had a similiar problem with my daughter when she was that age. she'd wake up in the middle of the night and want a bottle, and at that age, they don't need one in the middle of the night. we told our doctor about it, and he said the only thing we could really do is to let her cry it out. she screamed so much the first week we did it but after that, she did fine on her own. all we did when she woke up was check her diaper and then put her back in her crib and let her cry herself out. sometimes it'll take a while, especially if they work themselves up, but that was the only way we could get her to learn how to soothe herself.

Good Luck!