Jet lag UGH!!!

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evgreen

Registered User
Thanks to all of you who posted travel tips in one of my earlier posts. My 5 month old and I went to the US for a 3 week trip and to my surprise, she's a great traveler! We dealt with jet lag and it took us about a week to get over it and get her sleeping at 7pm bedtime again. The only thing is though, she went from one or two night wakings to 4 night wakings every night for the entire trip! I couldn't bring myself to do any type of sleep training because I felt bad enough for messing with her schedule and removing her to a completely unfamiliar environment. I tried feeding her more often during the day hoping she wouldn't be hungry at night, but that trick didn't work.

Now that we are back in HK. We are on day two of jet lag. While I'm super tired, I know it'll only be a matter of days before she readjusts. Problem is, how do I work thru the night wakings? I had been waking up to breast feed her thru her night wakings while we were abroad. Now that we're home, I'd like to start weaning her from so many night feedings so we're back to at the most two night feedings. Any tips?
 
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I think dealing with jet lag & weaning is too much change for a 5 month old IMO. I would deal with the jet lag first, let the baby get back to her normal body clock then once she's settled, work on the weaning.

Good luck!
 
I agree with Newbie. Your little one is dealing with jet lag and new experiences in her own way. Jet lag stinks and I know you're tired, but get over the jet lag first, give it a few weeks, and then wean from night nursings.

The way I dealt with night weaning is I went to my youngest every time she woke and instead of nursing her I rocked her back to sleep. She was not happy at first as she was accustomed to nursing back to sleep and she knew what she wanted, but after night three she began waking less and less till she was sleeping through the night, but be prepared to lose some sleep for about a week...
 
erina320 said:
The way I dealt with night weaning is I went to my youngest every time she woke and instead of nursing her I rocked her back to sleep. She was not happy at first as she was accustomed to nursing back to sleep and she knew what she wanted, but after night three she began waking less and less till she was sleeping through the night, but be prepared to lose some sleep for about a week...
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At what age did you start night weaning? Did you do a dream feed for a while? I hear complete night weaning shouldn't be done until LO doubles their birth weight and my girl has just about doubled her weight (took a while!)
 
I didn't night wean until about 10 months old. I think a mother can tell if her baby is nursing for nurishment or just to soothe, if it's just a soothing nurse then I think you'll be fine to wean night nursings.

I, like you, finally decided to wean after dealing with terrible jet lag after a trip to Europe. I couldn't deal with the sleep deprivation any longer. I waited about 3 weeks after our trip and then began night weaning. After about a week of rocking her back to sleep she finally started sleeping through the night though she still occasionally will wake at night. All I do is rock her back to sleep and it only happens maybe 1-2 times a month.

As for a dream feed, I nursed her before laying her down at night and in the morning when she wakes, never before 6:00am.
 
Thanks Erina! I'm just planning to cut back to two night feedings...don't think she's quite ready to completely night weaning just yet. I'll wait till jet lag is out of the way. I enjoy the closeness at night but 4 times a night is just too exhausting!
 
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