Or should I say I HAVE BEEN too lazy to stop her?A few days ago I woke up at 7:45 a.m. at night. Some call it morning. Tell them morning is defined as "the time period between dawn and noon" and sun comes up at 7:52 a.m. which means they're wrong.
So I woke up at night in the wrong bed, where I nurse Siiri. I looked at Siiri with tired confusion and a hope of putting her back in her bed. She looked back with lively energy and a hopeful look asking "wanna play?". 
I quickly offered her food because it usually makes her sleepy. She took a few sips and then looked at me with that after-Christmas-meal stuffed look. Then she quickly rolled away and started to make her way toward the edge of bed. I caught her ankle and shook my head to get my eyes to focus in the same place. I was desperate for more sleep. I tried leaving her to play alone in her bed while I sleep another hour or two but she - surprise-surprise - did not cooperate with that plan.So I lay in my bed trying to ignore the annoyed complaining coming from the baby monitor. It had been a while since I properly slept in my bed so my pillow felt extra comfortable. I thought, mhhh, there have been too many nights when I barely even get to sleep in my bed because I'm woken up with crying only an hour after I fall asleep and then I go and I try to get baby to fall asleep. I try cradling for a minute at most and then I take the easy way out and i just nurse her back to sleep. It really is a vicious cycle. If I didn't feed her, she might not even wake up and I would get more sleep. But I haven't been getting enough sleep so I'm too tired to do anything but feed her. What would happen if I simply didn't feed her for a little while? Sounds so familiar - wait, I've done that. And it worked!
I remembered Siiri used to sleep so well! And then her sleeping got worse and then I corrected it. And then she slept well again. Rinse and repeat.
This is the longest she has had frequent wake-ups. Her sleep has been getting worse ever since teething started at 4 months of age. With nearly every tooth there has been a time when I feed her almost every hour at night. It was so hard to make her feel better any other way and, to be honest, breastfeeding is a really pleasant and relaxing activity. Almost like getting high on happy-hormones without any life-threatening side effects. Teething was a great excuse to let her wake me up and not do anything to correct it. She woke up from pain anyway and I could really make her feel better by offering her food. 
Babies are creatures of habit - if a baby is fed to sleep at night, at many nights in a row, several times during a night, she will really start to expect her parent to feed her to sleep. Now Siiri is not growing a tooth even though her 8th should be almost here. Now I could be the one keeping her bad habit alive. I only have to stop feeding her and problem is solved. Right there and then, with Siiri complaining in the background, I decided (AGAIN) that enough is enough and Siiri must be weaned from night-feedings. I made a plan to start postponing her first night meal by one hour each night. Today her no-food time range is from 9 to 3. In a week it will be from 9 to 9. Twelve hours of baby starvation. And after that it must be a helluva good exception for me to feed her between 9 and 9. I'm so excited.
If it works, I'll get to go to parties again. My brain will have some processing power. My muscles will get the rest to heal from heavy workouts. I'll be a fresher and newer me. And perhaps I'll think about anything else besides baby sleep habits and teething.
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