Comfort Nursing

I want to share a testimony from a mom that I worked with. Her little boy was trying to nurse to get to sleep and to stay asleep. Mandy, the mom, and Austin, her 4-month old son, were both exhausted when she contacted me for help.
This is her story:

“My son started comfort nursing consistently at 11 weeks old. When he was younger, he would comfort nurse a night here or there for a few hours at a time. At 11 weeks, he started comfort nursing every night. Each night, the comfort nursing became longer and longer. I read everything I could find on the internet, talk to lactation consultants, our pediatrician and friends. I bought every brand of pacifiers in hopes I could trick him. Nothing worked. Many people told me he would grow out of it, or it was the 4 month sleep regression. After 6 weeks, his comfort nursing stretched into his naps and I could only get him unlatched at night from 3:45-5:15 each morning. At this point, I knew this wasn’t normal, but I didn’t know what to do on my own. That was when I contacted Arlene.
​”Arlene and I created a plan that fit my parenting style. Arlene visited my house, asked me many questions, provided me with lots of research and data, then gave me my son’s night 1 sleep plan. Everything in the plan was set at a level I was comfortable with. Each morning I wrote her how the last 24 hours went and Arlene responded with the next night’s plan. Even with a written out plan, many unexpected things happened. Arlene was always reachable by email, text or phone to guide me. There were moments I became frustrated, and thought the plan wasn’t “right” or working. Arlene was the outside voice I needed to keep me on track. By the end of my contract with Arlene, my son was no longer comfort nursing! I look back at this time and I can’t believe how difficult sleep was. I am so grateful to have had Arlene to coach me through this stressful time in our life.”

It is miserable when parents and baby are not getting continuous sleep at night. That is not a fun way to live. Because of exhaustion parents might fall asleep in a chair or another unsafe sleep environment.

If this is you and your family, contact me for some help. Please don’t continue to try and survive the lack of sleep. Your child is able to learn to sleep all night and take good naps. Sleep is a skill each child must learn, similar to learning the skill of sitting or crawling. Yet, unlike those skills, often a child needs help learning the skill of sleep.

Helping Babies Sleep