Weaning off night feeds

Last night marked the second night in a row that Trin did not nurse at night. She nursed to sleep but did not nurse in the night. When she stirred, I just cuddled her close and said 'mummy's here. No nen-nen okay?' and she would just continue sleeping. No protests.

Could be that I did the unthinkable three nights ago. I let her cry it out for 10 - 15min. Coming from me, always so adamantly against any form of CIO. Irony huh?

The eczema was flaring up again badly. My left nipple had three open fissures and everytime she nursed, it was plain agony. It didn't help that her latch was poor and shallow. Plus she had the habit of kicking off and pulling the nipple along. Also didn't help that she was clingier than usual over the past 2 weeks thanks to a combination of normal runny nose flu and gastric flu (all the kids came down with that - Owain threw up 5 times in a 24hr period, twice between 3am to 5am + an asthma attack which saw us heading to KKH Children's Emergency. Isaac was diarrhea-ing too etc. Trin did not come off too badly but had watery explosive poos once or twice.) So as a result of all that, she was nursing even more than ever. Thanks to the constant, non-stop nursing, I actually saw her stools revert back to newborn patterns - soft, mustardy yellow with rice-like bits.

Things came to a head that night when I had it. I was in constant pain from her nursing, plus the eczema never seemed to get any better at all. So we were in all in bed when I snapped. No more nen-nen. I unlatched her and turned away. She howled and screamed. KH tried to carry her, comfort her - no use. She only wanted me and nen-nen. Finally, I took her but told her sternly: Mummy's nen-nen hurts a lot. No nen-nen tonight. Let's sleep now! Poor girl took one look at me and meekly went to sleep, hiccuping away.

So since then, she has not nursed at night. She nurses like a champ in the day of course - every spare minute she can get. Whenever I'm at the PC, she's on me - nursing away. She'll stop to take a break - playing with the phone, the keyboard, mouse etc, but after 10min (15min if I'm lucky!) she'll be back at work on the breast.

She's 21 months and if this is end of night feeds, I feel a bit bad that it has to happen this way. But at the same time, I'm glad that my breasts can at least have a 'night break' and have some time to recover (well, the left one at least). I am happy though that it does not spell the end of nursing for us - just nursing at night. After all, I don't want Trin to wean off totally and permanently. Perhaps her day-time marathon sessions with me are to make up for the loss of night nursing. And with Owain still nursing thru day AND night, I think we'll probably still have some form of a nursing relationship going on for some time more.

As I write, the fissures on the left nipple (Trin's side) seem to healing. But it's now Owain's side to act up - after a day or so of 'good behavior', it's now itching with a vengeance, flaking away and weepy on the areola. Sigh. Never ending story.