I don't have any personal experience on the matter, but from what I've seen of other women's experience, it is common for the nursing toddler to get a little carried away if there aren't boundries laid out by mom. I've heard many people pleased with the results when they simply stopped offering to nurse, only doing so when asked. A further step is to nonchalantly offer a substitute for nursing when asked at inconvenient times, or to only nurse in specific situations e.g. naptime, mornings, etc. As for nursing all night, it does sound like it is for comfort. Since you should now be producing colostrum rather than the fattier milk, she is probably not getting the "full" signal from her belly that would normally lead to her unlatching on her own. Once she falls asleep latched on, the change in that situation wakes her up, and then she just wants to get cozy and comfortable again suckling. Kind of like when you have to get out of bed at night, and you just want to find that same cozy spot you had been in. It seems that she may need to get to sleep without nursing to end the cycle. Perhaps if you nurse her in a chair before going to bed, then wear a tee-shirt or bra that would restrict her access to you at night. She should still be able to find comfort in your warmth and softness, but without the sudden jolt of unlatching, she should be able to sleep undisturbed. You could also try shuffling the sleeping arrangements so that she is on the other side of Dad. You could try the pacifier thing, but I imagine she wouldn't accept it, and she is old enough that her need to suck is probably not so strong that a pacifier is really needed. The trick is that she will just have to get settled and comfortable without being latched on in the first place. That's why I feel blessed that my daughter loves to suck her fingers so much. I don't care how much I have to pay the orthodontist later, that baby can soothe herself right to sleep! Congrat's on the new baby and best of luck to you!

Thanks for the replies. They are at least 3 weeks old. We found them on the 5th and they were a few days old then. They do seem to sleep a lot so they must be getting enough to eat. I have handled them probably once a day for the last few days. One of the kittens had his eye sealed shut twice by this gunk and I had to remove it. The mother has an eye that is runny so they probably have some type of infection. I need to take them to the vet (I have an ointment for one of my adult cats that had an eye infection/illness earlier this year but don't want to use it on the kittens as they are so young.) But at the moment I can't afford to take them to the vet (my vet charges a $50 office visit for EACH cat). They do walk around their "house" a little bit to change sleeping positions or to cuddle with each other. Their legs are very wobbly. Their little ears are still sort of flattened to their headds so they are definately younger than I originally thought they were. I bought KMR and have given some to the mama cat (who doesn't care for it). I tried to bottle feed one of the babies but he didn't take to it. I'm feeding the mama cat three cans of wet food a day and all the dry food she wants to eat. Yesterday when I was holding one of her babies he kept crying and she was very nervous and kept "talking" to him and licking him and he still cried and she started panting really hard like she was nervous. After I fixed his eye, I put him back in the box and he was fine. He seemed to perk up after I got his other eye open. None of them are sneezing or showing any respiratory illness, just have gunk in their eyes and mama's eye is very watery. The mama cat now tries to run into the house every time we open the door. Seems she wants to escape from her kittens! Yesterday when I came home from work, the neighbor's dog had gotten loose (this big hound dog) and was in our yard. He was barking and barking. Mama cat (her kittens are behind the house) was in the front yard literaly six inches from this dog's face. She was crouched down and hissing at the dog. But she would not flee. The dog didn't know what to do so he was just barking obnoxiously. I've never seen a cat just stand there in front of a big noisy dog like that before. She will also challenge the neutered male cat (even when he's not near her kittens) by getting right in his face and growling.

I once lost a kitten who wouldn't "wean". She was an orphan, & I raised her on KMR, but she never would drink on her own, & she never learned to eat. The vet couldn't offer any help or advice, other than to keep the kitten every day & have one of the vet techs handfeed her (my expense, of course). Eventually, the kitten weakened & died. Looking back on that miserable experience, I think the kitten had something like "fading kitten syndrome", & the kinder thing would have been for the vet to tell me that the prospects were dim. Yes, the kittens will be old enough to separate from their mother. If all conditions were ideal, I'd say keep them with her until maybe 10 to 12 weeks, but they'll be fine. I wish you the best.

YES, I WOULD INDEED bottle feed them if they are showing signs of sucking behavior. Grown cats sucking on clothing or your skin is a really obnoxious habit (I think), and ut can in fact become dangerous if they do it to the point they are actually ingesting fibers from fabrics. You really can't a make blanket statement like all cats are or s/b weaned at 6 weeks, or 8 weeks. Some of the oriental breeds wean much older, at 12 weeks. Some are born prematurely and so you can't really apply the same yardstick to all. AND, besides... it is becoming more recognized amongst animal behaviorists that 10-12 weeks is a better age to take kittens from their mom as there is a whole host of behaviors they learn from mom and also it gives more time for them to make a healthy adjustment to being more independent (Don't worry, they are still plenty playful and cute at 12 weeks.) Back to the sucking habit - it is in fact caused by taking kitten from mom too soon, and it really is an obnoxious habit. Somewhere I read that bottle feeding was indeed recommended for the very reason you suggest to help along their development - this one behaviorist even recommended it for older cats which sounded interesting - that would definitely make an interesting experiment if I ever have the misfortune of getting a sucking cat again. It's great those little kitties found you when they did! Poor things - if they lost their mom as early as you guessed its a small miracle that they survived at all.