Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Day 63: A near-perfect day and rethinking night weaning

Mari had a great day today. A morning and an afternoon nap of an hour and a half each, and hardly a moment of fussing all day, none at all at naptime or bedtime. Of course, I can't count on every day being like this, but I want to celebrate the good days. I did have to put her back down when she woke up from her morning nap, but at least she let me put her back down. And she slept all the way through her afternoon nap. Though she cried out a bit in the middle, when I went to check on her she was still asleep.

I am, however, reconsidering if I should try to limit her to one night feeding. I had been thinking I ought to because that's what our doctor said. I like our doctor; I think she's a very reasonable woman. However, Mari isn't a big eater during the day. I have been trying to feed her at least once every three hours lately but until recently she was often going four hours between breastfeeds -- I was more or less feeding on demand, but she didn't demand feedings often. Even with the effort now to feed her more often, I really don't think she's eating any more even when she does take the breast. She often stops before my breasts feel really drained, or really feeds properly off only one breast. And her weight gain has been slow lately.

Doctors seem to say a lot of different things about when a baby should night wean. Some say they're ready at three months; other say it's OK to night nurse well into toddlerhood. That tells me there's no definitive answer.

Mari hasn't demanded feeding more than twice at night in a long time. Sometimes she wants to nurse only once; rarely, not at all. But twice a night, considering she's sleeping an average of 11 to 11.5 hours in total, isn't too much to ask. I don't want her to get into a habit of nursing at night unnecessarily. But for now I will continue letting her nurse twice a night, though I will still limit it to 5 hours after she goes to bed, then 3 hours after the first night feeding. I will offer both breasts at both feedings.

2 comments:

  1. I recently have weaned to once a night. I did this when I realized it was just comfort eating, she was not eating much. Waiting till this made it much easier. Before I tried and it was hard because I think my LO was hungry and needed it. So I stopped and gave back in. After her eating better she seems to need less and the night weaning went so smooth and only took several nights.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Makes sense to me. When Mari eats at night she seems to eat quite a lot, so I guess she does still need it.

    ReplyDelete