Expert: ruth kraft - 3/29/2010

Question
My baby is one year old and she has never had a bottle in her life. Now she is still breastfeeding, and eating solids as well. Since I returned to work, a couple of months ago, she will only nurse at night (she has cow-milk and yogurt and cheese during the day). We were co-sleeping, so everything was fine. Now however, she won't sleep through the night with me. She wakes up in her crib every 1-3 hours, I take her to bed with me, nurse her, then she will eventually cry, and I have to put her back in her crib. You can imagine how tired I am! How can I get her to sleep longer stretches? I also want to wean her, but how do you wean a tired baby, with a even more tired mom? I don't like the methods were you have to let your baby cry, so I'm doing a lot of singing and walking around at night! Thank you for your help!

Answer
There is a book called "the no cry sleep solution" that I reccomend. it will take you through different options you can try and help her to sleep longer. Weaning after such a huge transition of you going back to work, is going to be hard right now. So I would put that off for a while longer. My guess is, this change she is going through is because she is struggling being away from you longer than she wants to be. Once she moves into the confidence of always knowing you return and are there for her to meet her needs, she will settle in again. You might try a few days of cosleeping and see if that helps. Otherwise that book should be pretty helpful ...

I hope that helped!
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