Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Night weaning - 17 days in for gently toddler night weaning

Night weaning a two year old? How hard can it be? If you're new here, start at night number one of night weaning, gently.

It was a decision we teetered on for a while before we determined that yes, it was time to finally night wean our newly minted two year old. I'm a working mom, attached as I can be, with a bit of a yell that I'm trying to lose... but we do the best we can with what we have at the time, right? I know that a bit more sleep will help us both, but we're still struggling to get my son to bed at a decent time (ie, before 10) on a consistent basis.

Night 17 was Father's Day. We had let Daddy sleep in this morning, though sleeping in for a 2 year old seems to be 6:30 am! Since we had plans for music at the Railroad Park in the evening (which ends at 9 pm), we'd assumed our son would fall asleep on the way home, and from there we could transition him into the toddler bed and he'd sleep there until morning. We all dream right? Well, it worked mostly well, so it was a good thing we brought along our tooth brushes. Kids were asleep on the drive home, our toddler slept in his bed (in our room), our 4 year old slept in her room. I slept in our room and life was good.

Until 3 am when my son woke up. I'm starting to see a pattern, aren't you?

What I'm also seeing is that my son is generally having to go bathroom at the same time. We're in the dry desert - I drink water at night, so I know he's thirsty too, so cutting bedtime nursing makes him thirsty and I refuse to cut water before bed time...

So let's see what we can do. The big thing is, my son woke this night and wanted to go outside - apparently he was remembering early night weaning days. I'm not ready for that! Eek! Anyway, he was able to get back to bed without nursing, though he did ask. However, he was satisfied with some water and was able to snuggle and head back to bed. My daughter also woke up, but she woke up due to cold. It is hot in the desert and to save on energy we tend to keep the house cooler in the early morning so that the AC doesn't run all day long. However, cool to us is approximately 78* - yeah not that cool, but it works for us and it keeps our electric bill low. With solar, we just pay "billing" each month through the summer, so we can't complain, right :)

Anyway, we're working on what will work best for our family through this time. Hopefully we can figure it out!

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