My daughter will be 1 year old this month. She falls asleep in her Ergo or backpack carriers, or in the carseat, or nursing. If she is tired she'll usually ask to nurse and fall asleep nursing. We co-sleep and she frequently wants to nurse during the night too. I'm not sure how often, but more than 4 times a night for sure. I don't mind that at all when I'm in the bed with her, but I don't always want to be in the bed with her. There are certain times (first few sleep cycles in the evening, and most naps) when she wants to nurse after every sleep cycle. If I do not nurse her back to sleep at these times she wakes up crying and crying.
As you can imagine this is inconvenient because I have to be very close by and run to nurse her the second she cries out, if I want to avoid her waking up in the evening and then keeping me up until midnight.
Do other babies do this too? Is there anything I can do to change this pattern? I have always nursed her whenever she wanted, and am not willing to let her "cry-it-out" (and it wouldn't work anyways, because she just wakes up). But it would be great if she could just sleep a little more deeply on her own for naps and the first 2-3 hours of the night. At present we are doing field work 5 days/week, so sleeping in a tent, and it is difficult to keep up this nursing-back-to-sleep unless I just stay inside the tent with her (otherwise I have to take off muddy boots, or leave the tent flap open while mosquitos fly in, to nurse her back to sleep every time. It just seems like there should be an easier way...??? I have heard people suggest the father takes over the bedtime, but my husband basically just throws his hands in the air and tells me to nurse the baby because she's tired.