Re: All Night Nursing @18 months
If it helps we are going through this on and off at 18.5 months. Mine has never STTN and I just started to get some longer stretches of sleep. She's a chatterbox but still only one, two or three words at a time plus the chatter that makes sense to her. She repeats or calls out or recognizes - oh - 100+ words I guess. She understands practically everything. I imagine there's a long prep time for more complex talking and that brain is working and developing a lot day or night. And it's probably frustrating that she can't communicate to us as well as she can understand us. I can see the frustration during waking hours. Book! Book! Book! (She wants to read but I'm not sure which of the 75 books she wants). So nursing all night (kind of) makes sense.
I didn't look up your profile so I'm not sure if you work. I do, full time, and part of our night nursing is also making up for my absence during the day. We co sleep, which I love, but some days it's rough. On weekends I nurse a lot and try to nap with her when I can.
You have my total empathy on this one. The scary thing for me is knowing Ill wake up one day and she might not want to nurse or snuggle. Scarier is that I'll blink and she'll be a teen. So I kind of have to cherish the now.
1st time mom over 40 to Alex(andra) b: 7/14/12