Yesterday I wrote, and reminisced, about nursing my little man. My how it has changed since he was as wee as he was in those photos.

It has certainly changed. And, 13 days ago, we decided that it was time to change it even further. 13 days ago, we decided to change the game, introduce a new set of rules. Milk is for daytime, sleep is for nighttime.

This was an important change, a necessary change. One that, while he wasn’t terribly thrilled with at first, is truly best for our whole family. It is a change we’ve talked about and abandoned. Previously deciding that our little guy just wasn’t quite ready yet. Two weeks ago, it seemed like he was. And now, looking back at our choice to night wean and the sleep it has granted us, we know that it was the right time. He was ready.

Let’s recall, back in April in posted about sleep in our household. Or, more aptly, the lack of sleep in our household. Things were bleak. We weren’t resting. Ewan wasn’t resting. Well over a year into this gig and we were, rarely, getting a stretch longer than a few hours.

A week later I posted again. A tooth had, finally, broken and we were granted a bit of a reprieve. Well, that being the first tooth, the reprieve was short.

Over the next few months Ewan got five more teeth, for a grand total of six at the moment. His comfort, and our sleep, continued to be interrupted.

Nursing stopped being the solution, Ewan would no longer fall asleep at the breast.

He began to refuse the sling, as well. Arching his back and screaming when we would try to put him into what used to be a sure thing.

At 16 months we were out of ideas, out of tricks, seriously low on sleep after waking, on average, 2-4 times per night for close to six months. It was time for a change, for a new paradigm.

Just as we weren’t willing to let Ewan cry-it-out months ago, we still weren’t willing to do so now. But we also weren’t willing to continue on this path. We were all feeling the ill-effects of sleep deprivation. Weekends were being spent trying to catch-up on sleep, taking turns taking naps, rather than having fun family adventures. My afternoons were dragging, instead of enjoying Ewan’s naptime or using it to get something done, I found myself napping or, worse, just vegging on the couch. Something had to change.

We decided that, starting immediately, there would be two new nighttime rules:

1. No night nursing. At sixteen months, I was confident that Ewan could make it through the night without snacking. He is big, he’s been growing well. I knew I’d need to make more of an effort to tank him up through the day, but that is easy enough. Ewan nurses before bedtime, he is welcome to do so when he first wakes and joins us in our bed (which he now refuses), but then no more milk until morning.

2. No getting out of bed at night. No walking about in the sling. No rocking in the chair. Getting out of bed was, perhaps, contributing more to our problems than the night nursing. Settling Ewan in the sling, walking about until he was soundly asleep, and then lying him down took at least 20 minutes. By that time my husband, or I, were fully awake, mind wandering, and we had difficulty falling asleep. Now Ewan would be given comfort in bed; quiet songs, back rubs, anything at all, just no getting out.

The first night, I won’t lie, was tough. Of course it was. All of a sudden the rules had changed. Rules that Ewan had come to know during the course of his short life had changed completely. He did cry and protest (on-and-off for nearly three hours), but he didn’t cry-it-out. Aaron and I were there, the whole time, holding his hand, rubbing his back, telling him we loved him. Eventually, he tired, snuggled up, went back to sleep, and didn’t wake until morning.

Each night after that got a little bit easier. The second night there was only an hour or so of protest.

The third, maybe 30-45 minutes.

Last night, the 13th night, there was very little. We have successfully night-weaned and we are all getting more sleep.

We still co-sleep, most of the night, and he still wakes a whole lot. Now instead of nursing or needing to be slung or rocked, he seeks out a crook in our arm or crawls up and lies his head on the pillow beside us and, with minimal fuss, goes back to sleep.

Finally, after sixteen months of parenthood, we are getting rest. Our kid is, almost, sleeping through the night, and we are emerging from the thick fog that we lived in.

It is easy to wonder, should we have done this earlier, would we have gotten more rest if we gave this a try a few months ago. Maybe. Maybe not.

Honestly, I’m glad we waited until now. Waited until he was ready. As a sixteen month old toddler, I feel like he is in a place where he can understand that milk is for daytime and sleep is for nighttime. While he didn’t immediately agree to the new rules, I do believe he understood them, and, as a result, he was quick to accept them as well.

Thank goodness for that.

Tell me, when did you all night wean? How did the process go for you?