Makes Milk with Emma Pickett Night weaning
Sep 12, 2023
Explore night weaning and different methods like Dr. Jay Gordon's and Lyndsey Hookway's approach. Leaving your nursling overnight is not an effective strategy for weaning. Challenges cultural expectations of uninterrupted sleep and encourages reevaluating assumptions about a child's sleep patterns. Night-weaning may improve parental sleep but not necessarily the child's. Strategies include storytelling, singing, white noise machines, and involving the child in choosing a nighttime friend. Prepare the child, create alternative associations for falling asleep, and provide emotional support during the night weaning process. Seek professional help for sleep issues.
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Normalizing Night Waking
- Night waking in young children is often natural and not harmful if it doesn't distress anyone.
- Fragmented sleep is common and not equivalent to sleep deprivation, challenging cultural sleep expectations.
Night Weaning Requires Preparation
- Night-weaning won't necessarily improve your sleep; your child may still wake needing comfort.
- Prepare to develop other co-regulation techniques as breastfeeding naturally aids sleep with sedative hormones.
Breastfeeding as Emotional Tool
- Nighttime breastfeeding often serves emotional and sleep transition needs more than nutritional ones.
- Breastfeeding is a trusted co-regulation method that helps children feel safe and loved at night.