What have we been up to????

NightWeaning!

How is it going?

Wonderfully!

We did a "gradual extinction" method...

Night 1 and 2: Limit overnight feedings to 5 minutes. What I found was that she was done actively drinking at 5 minutes. She had no objection to being put back into bed...although she was passed out asleep by that time.

Night 3 and 4: Feedings each last 4 minutes. Then pop off and put in bed. Both of those nights she looked up at me like "I'm not really done ma, but if you say so - I guess it's okay" and fell back to sleep maybe a minute later in the crib.

Night 5: 3 minute feedings. (See the pattern here?) She was definitely not done at 3 minutes and was wide awake when I put her down after the first feeding. She cried for 3 minutes and after the next feeding later that night, she went back in her crib babbling and talking until she put herself to sleep.

Night 6: She slept from 7:45pm-4:15am... yay! Progress! (Sure, she was awake at 9pm and cried once when she rolled over and then awake again about an hour later and cried for maybe 3 minutes, but I didn't go in to her). I fed her at 4:15 (until she was done actively drinking) and plunked her back into her crib and she slept until we all woke up around 6:15.

Night 7 (Last night): She slept from 8:30pm (yeah, we got home late) until I woke up at 4:55am to get ready for work. I really think she would have slept longer if she hadn't heard me getting ready. Again, I fed her until she had her fill and put her back in her crib. When I left the house this morning at 5:40am, my baby and hubby were both sound asleep.

I am so happy of our week long process of night weaning. Not saying I'll never go to her in the middle of the night again, but I feel she's definitely getting "it" now that she's feeling well and sleeping well.

Mamma is happy :) (and that makes daddy happy too!)