14 months and still gets up atleast 4-5 times at night

hi,I have a wonderful ,happy go lucky kid who has recently started
going to a day care centre (with my maid).Since birth,she would get up
atleast 4-5 times at night and begin to cry.Invariably,I strating
feeding her and now it has become a never to leave habit.The more I
avoid feeding her,the crying prolongs endlessly.no..i do not switch on
the lights at all.I usually take her in my arms and try to pat her on
my shoulders...she would houl....Please help!!

"krittika" wrote in message
ups.com...
hi,I have a wonderful ,happy go lucky kid who has recently started
going to a day care centre (with my maid).Since birth,she would get up
atleast 4-5 times at night and begin to cry.Invariably,I strating
feeding her and now it has become a never to leave habit.The more I
avoid feeding her,the crying prolongs endlessly.no..i do not switch on
the lights at all.I usually take her in my arms and try to pat her on
my shoulders...she would houl....Please help!!

I had some success by teaching first teaching my son (he was 19mos) to
unlatch when I asked. I'd say 'finish up' and give him a few seconds to
unlatch or I would do it for him. I did that during the day when he was
about ready to be done anyway. Then I started shortening each night nursing
session by asking him to 'finish up'. If he didn't unlatch I did it for
him. I was fairly anxious for a complete night weaning so I just kept
shortening them until they were nearly gone and then I started eliminating
them one by one. I was co-sleeping with him so he continued to wake up and
ask to nurse for a really long time. He went back to sleep without much
fuss though when I said no. If you have a dh to help I think it would be
easier. Mine didn't :-P.


--
Nikki, mama to
Hunter 4/99
Luke 4/01
Brock 4/06
Ben 4/06

"krittika" ) writes:
hi,I have a wonderful ,happy go lucky kid who has recently started
going to a day care centre (with my maid).Since birth,she would get up
atleast 4-5 times at night and begin to cry.Invariably,I strating
feeding her and now it has become a never to leave habit.The more I
avoid feeding her,the crying prolongs endlessly.no..i do not switch on
the lights at all.I usually take her in my arms and try to pat her on
my shoulders...she would houl....Please help!!

One solution is to sleep in the same bed with the child
and nurse lying down. Nursing lying down can be almost
as restful for the mother as sleeping. Some mothers can
sleep and nurse at the same time.

Another idea is to get the child accustomed to being alone
while falling asleep. I think this has to be done gradually
and with love, so that the child can feel calm while alone.
Maybe some children are not going to feel calm while alone
no matter what you do. children are instinctively afraid
of the dark, afraid of being alone and afraid of falling
asleep alone. These instincts saved our ancestors from
being eaten by predators.

Anyway, my theory is that if a child falls asleep with a parent
in the room and later wakes to find se's alone, se will
feel that something is wrong and cry. But if the child
is taught that it's normal routine to fall asleep alone,
then if the child later wakes up in a room alone, se might
stay quietly lying there and fall asleep again, just like at
bedtime. (Or, se might still cry.) Eventually the child
only half-wakes up and later doesn't bother waking.

Maybe some children have terrible nightmares or a very
strong instinct of being afraid of being alone, and maybe
with some of these children it's not worthwhile trying
to teach them to sleep alone until they're a bit older.

Keeping their daytime life less stressful may also
help -- e.g. not yelling at them, not letting other
kids or anyone hit them or grab toys from them, etc.
so they don't have as many things to have nightmares
about. I think it takes many days or months to get
over stressful incidents.

Another idea is to hold and comfort the child but not
nurse or feed the child. Some children may really need
nourishment in the middle of the night. Others may
be accustomed to nursing around bedtime and just feel
that it's the normal reassuring thing to do in order
to be able to fall asleep. They may be able to learn
a different habit but it may be very difficult. I think
it's good to make changes gradually, as another
poster described.

Once a child learns to fall asleep again after
being held or hugged by a parent but not fed,
I think they tend to naturally progress to not
crying or calling for the parent in the middle of
the night as often -- maybe only when they have
a really bad dream.

You can also try to teach the child not to cry or
call for the parent but to quietly walk into the
parent's room. Again, once this is the routine
the child may do it less often -- if it wasn't
a very bad dream, the child may sometimes just fall asleep
again rather than going to the effort of getting up,
whereas if they could cry or call and have the
parent come they would easily do that.
This may apply more to older children e.g. around
age 3 or 4 and up.