Here is a link to some information on dental caries and breastfeeding: (from our Link Library that is currently under complete renovation!)
http://65.61.36.192/alezav16/default2.asp?tree=619

Thanks so much for your detailed answer and the suggestion to encourage a happy bedtime.. I actually went back to lying with my son until he was almost asleep and making sure our bedtime was very peaceful. I also lay with him when he does wake at 4:30 until he falls asleep and he seems to go to sleep for an hour or two more. Although, he still wakes up atleast once a night a couple times a week, is this typical for a 3.5 year old? Somedays he is napping and some days he is not. I always lie down with him for his nap around 2pm and sometimes he will sleep and sometimes he does not. When he does nap it is about 2 hours. However, at night our son will sometimes wake up in a complete rage. He will scream like crazy and hit me if I come close and then after about 5-15 min he will stop and go right to sleep. I think this is like some sorta night terror or confusional arousal, he use to sometimes act this way when he would wake up from his naps but now its just at night. At what point would you suggest involving a pediatric sleep specialist or do you think he will just grow out of all these crazy sleep patterns. As I stated before he averages 10-12 hours a sleep a day and usually wakes up around 6. He will go to bed at 7 if he does not nap and if he naps will go to sleep around 8:30. Thanks so much for your tips!

My husband and I both feel that co-sleeping with our baby, who is now an active, engaged, intelligent and confident 24 month old toddler, was the right decision for our family. But other than Dr. Sear’s encouragement to co-sleep, I have not found much helpful information about what the family bed looks like with a growing toddler. Co-sleeping is a semi-secret in our circle of friends, family and doctors, because we do not want to be dissuaded from what feels natural and right to us.

That said, we know that change is the only constant, and have been casting around for an honest discussion of options and education regarding rearranging the family bed as our child grows. We will not be weaning him from night nursing or the family bed anytime soon, but it is such a relief to know there are thoughtful and sensitive plans, and support, for parents to help teach a child that nighttime is for sleeping.

We could never tolerate reading discussions that involve the intolerable “cry it out” or “mommy and daddy are exhausted sexless martyrs for your benefit” methods. There is a third way! Thank you for your important discussion on “baby-centered” and “baby’s family centered” sleeping. What wonderful words and ideas to add to our vocabulary and experience!

Some children….some people really!…are just not flexible when it comes to their sleep cycles. She may be an early riser and there may not be anything you try that ever changes that. However, you can teach her different habits. She can learn that if she wakes up early her options are to read quietly in bed or quietly play with a doll or stuffed animals but stay in her room.

I think the biggest key to making changes with an almost two year old is to talk about it with her at a time during the day (and several times per day!) about what you expect and how things are going to go that evening and morning. Talk talk talk about it with her. It’s almost as if describing in advance what she needs to “see” happening. With a little time she will then make it happen. Praise her HUGEly for every little step in the right direction…again…during the day when she’s at her best.

Hope this helps and congratulations on the new baby on the way!

If you feel they are ready to night wean you’ll need to have a plan of action for means to comfort that doesn’t involve nursing. You can soothe with voice, patting, holding their hand…whatever you think will be most helpful for them as a tool to soothe back to sleep without nursing. You are the one that is the best judge of whether they are ready to night wean and what might work best for them.

Hope this helps. I feel your pain! I was a very tired, though happy, mom of twin toddlers…but there does come a point when exhaustion rules and you have to adjust things simply for survival.

Regarding sleep training…I always found it ironic that some of my friends that were so gungho about sleep training their infants went on to have an older child with whom they had major night time bed battles that dominated their evenings.

Hope this helps.

I’m trying to night wean my 12 month old. So far we’ve done 3 weeks of no nursing or picking up between 7pm-3am (after 3am I nurse if she wakes). In spite of this, she continues to wake 2-3 times between 7pm-3am; I settle her by holding her hand and speaking to her. Why is she still not sleeping through this 7-8 hour stretch?

Currently our nighttime routine looks like this: tandem nurse both babies to sleep around 9 PM, transfer to cribs (which are in our bedroom). They sleep in their cribs until 11-12 PM, and when they wake I usually get up and bring them to our bed, where they then have unlimited access to me for the rest of the night.

This has worked out to some degree because I get a lot more sleep this way, but cosleeping with twins isn’t as easy as with one baby – lots less room in the bed, active crawling/climbing babies are getting past the barriers and we fear them falling on the floor, etc. Plus, DH is getting to the point where he is pretty insistent about them being transitioned to cribs, as he wants the bed back. In any case, it’s time for a change but I just don’t know how to implement it with all of these variables in place.

For the last couple of nights I’ve tried nursing them and putting them back in their own beds instead of keeping them with us. I’ve been getting up/down over 10 times a night (between two babies, getting up to nurse and then putting them back to bed) … which means I am getting NO sleep. This isn’t going to work …!

Please help this exhausted twin mama with some advice on nightweaning twins … thanks!

It can be very tricky with a just turned one year old. Some of them are ready to night wean and it happens pretty easily, but some just aren’t ready and it becomes a battle. You are the only one that knows if he is at a place where he could learn that night time is for sleeping. It sounds like he doesn’t even completely wake up and you’re dealing with a toddler that is functioning on the natural infant instinct to nurse when they wake. Have you considered using a small mattress next to yours to teach night time sleeping? It works well for some because they have their own space to thrash around in and can learn to lie still and nurse when lying over by Mom and then roll over onto their own space when done. It might be something you want to consider.

When you’re making progress with night weaning definitely adjust the suggestions as you feel would be best for your own baby. You are the one that knows when your baby is ready to move forward more than anyone else. The same applies to nursing to sleep. If you know your baby needs to nurse to sleep and learn night weaning pertaining to those times when he wakes after going to bed until it’s light outside, then adjust it to your baby’s needs.

Hope this helps.

Here is my question – it says to make sure to put him down awake – Often when he “wakes up” he is sitting up screaming but with his eyes closed. I’ve tried soothing him without nursing and he just thrashes around and does not want to be cuddled with. When I put my breast in his mouth he instantly calms down and stops moving, and sometimes does not even begin to suck for maybe 20 seconds, but if I remove my breast he immediately begins crying again. Not every wake up is like this, but at least twice a night it is. How would you recommend handling it? My thought is just to let him nurse until his breathing has calmed and then unlatch him, but that either results in A. screaming (which I can handle if needed) or B. he is already asleep.

Here is question #2. Like I said he does not want to be cuddled when he is trying to nurse and I’m not nursing him. He pushes away and cries. We have tried doing this in our bed and it really is hazardous. There is no way I can play asleep. He thrashes around, sits up, then flings himself down to the bed, once giving me a fat lip with his head, and often banging my face, my breasts, sometimes hitting his head hard on the wall. So, I have to keep pulling him down to a laying down position, which is not easy considering he is 32+ pounds, and just not very gentle or soothing. So, I’ve decided it has to happen in my arms in the chair in his room, and I’ll lay him down in the crib and then sleep on the floor next to him. It is hard to do it in my arms, but better than laying down, and I don’t want him to have to cry in the crib without me. Do you have any better suggestions? But then what do I do during nights 6-10? Do I just stick with the day 4-6 routine until he can be in the crib without crying? Or do I bring him back to the bed and see if we can do the night 6-10 routine there? I’m sorry this is so long! I really appreciate your taking the time to answer! – a deliriously sleepy mom.

I hope to have the updated Link Library up by August.

Anyway, what struck me was that when I mentioned that the most recently published studies in peer-reviewed journals conclude that evidence for the link between night-nursing and tooth decay is inconclusive, neither dentist knew what I was talking about. I’m a bit disturbed by the fact that my dentists are making recommendations based on outdated research. An updated Links Library is most welcome!

When you are home for the weekend is there a morning that you can go back to sleep after the first morning nursing and let someone else take him for a walk or out of the house and get a couple of hours of solid sleep? A couple of hours of sleep without that sense of listening for the baby can give you the boost that you need to combat the exhaustion. At least temporarily this may help you get over the transition period.

Hope that helps.