Reflections on Breastfeeding and Night Waking
When my first child, Emily, was born four years ago I expected the first months of her life to be a haze of sleep deprivation. After all, that's how it had been for all of my friends who'd had babies - everyone I knew with a newborn had endured that craziness for varying lengths of time. I was prepared for it, and I wasn't going to be caught off guard!Emily was breastfed, and at ten weeks old she "slept through the night" for the first time. I woke up at 5am, a good eight hours after her last feed and my blood ran cold. I tore into her room to find her sleeping soundly just as I had left her.
She has done this every night since, except for a few nights here and there when she was unwell. Even when teething, she continued to sleep 12 hours a night, uninterrupted.
So two years later, when my son Toby was born - I knew it all. He was also breastfed, and he would be sleeping through too by ten weeks, because hey! - I was an expert. Those of you with more than one child probably already know what's coming. Yes, karma bit me on the backside, hard. No matter what I did, Toby had no intention of sleeping through at 10 weeks. At 10 months he was waking up almost hourly, and I was nearly beside myself coping with a toddler during the day and no sleep at night. That is when it started.
Suddenly, I was inundated with advice, most of which had a common theme: "You need to wean him". Everyone from my husband, my mother, my friends, to our GP said that at his age, he would never stop waking up until I stopped breastfeeding him. Suddenly, this wonderful gift I was giving my son was a tool for everyone around me to use to make me feel that my suffering was somehow self-inflicted - and that unless I was prepared to "do" something about it (ie. wean him), I should just stop complaining.
I didn't wean him because I just knew in my heart that he wasn't ready. He continued to wake at night for a breastfeed, even beyond his first birthday. While it was never as bad as it had been at 10 months, he still woke twice a night without exception. By the time he was a year-and-a-half old, I had long lost any expectation that he would ever sleep through the night.
About month ago, we celebrated Toby's second birthday. And two weeks ago, completely out of the blue, he slept through the night - and he has done it every night since. He's still breastfeeding and nothing else has changed. He was just ready. I know that for him, weaning him early would have achieved nothing in the sleep department - and we would have lost not only our breastfeeding relationship, but probably even more sleep getting up to heat bottles in the middle of the night when he continued to wake up anyway.
Now that he has night weaned by himself, I'm so glad that I kept breastfeeding through the temptation to quit. Breastfeeding babes do sleep through - sometimes at 10 weeks, some not until two years - but just like every other baby, they do it when they're ready and nothing will make them do it before that magical, blessed day arrives.
Now, if you're listening Toby it would be lovely if you'd wean completely by Christmas. But if you aren't ready yet, that's OK too.
Labels: breastfeeding
About this entry
You’re currently reading “
- Published:
- 12:16 PM
- by Tina
2 Comments (Post a Comment)