The suggestions given by us all about how to get babies to sleep a little
longer at night or get back to sleep are missing the point as far as I can
see.

My guess, based on all too much experience, is not that Mom is dead set in
getting the baby back to sleep without nursing but that Dad and Mom disagree
about this.  And, the word "disagree" is probably a polite understatement.

OK, where do we go from here?  We have to either get the two of them on the
same page or get them to be all right with being on different pages.

The big deal for most families is not the family bed, night waking, night
nursing and so on.  The really big problem is the disagreement between the
two parents.  My experience tells me that many fathers feel that these night
waking and night nursing are "wrong."  That is a much more difficult issue.
Virtually any baby can be coerced into sleeping longer or getting back to
sleep unnursed:  Just let them cry and cry.  Again, this is not a very easy
solution to support and we all look for something else.

I do my best to let fathers know that a mom who weans or even night-weans
before she's ready may harbor bad feelings and even resentment toward Dad,
for a long time.

Some fathers even listen

Jay Gordon, MD, FAAP, IBCLC

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html