16 months too late for sleep aids like light projectors/white noise etc?

[Maisie55]

Help me wise mners!! DS2 is 16 months, bfs to sleep and wakes 2+ times a night. I would really like to stop breastfeeding and of course to get a bit more sleep! He does take a bottle and has a bottle of cows milk at bedtime but then invariably just won't settle unless I bf to sleep (ridiculous I know!).

I had some success with gradual retreat at about 10 months but this got set back by various illness/holidays etc which put us back at square one. I tried gradual retreat again last week, he screamed for 40 minutes and was then sick, it was awful and I felt horrible for putting him through it.

I really don't want to go through that again and am thinking of alternative ways to distract/calm him at bedtime. Have I missed the boat with the whole white noise thing? and what about those light projectors, does anyone use them with an older baby? any recommendations? any other general tips/advice/suggestions would be very welcome!!

TIA

[Maisie55]

bumping for the evening crowd...

[minipie]

Hi, we use a light projector with 15 mo dd, however we use it while putting her PJs on rather than to get her to sleep so not exactly what you have in mind. (She will generally self settle after we did CC a long time ago). The light projector does seem to chill her out and get her into bedtime mode so it might work for yours, though you'd have to wait for the novelty excitement factor to wear off.

Another way we get her to sleep if she is ill or teething and won't self settle: we walk around holding her in the dark and sing or recite a favourite bedtime story. She dozes pretty much off on our shoulder and then can be put down very sleepy and drops off in the cot. Still not self settling and harder work than a light projector but avoids the feeding to sleep association.

[minipie]

PS the No Cry Sleep Solution could well be for you I think, have a look.

[Maisie55]

Hi minipie, thanks for your response, can I ask which projector you have? I do have a copy of NCSS, maybe I need to take another look but didn't really get anywhere with it previously. Thanks for taking the time to respond

[minipie]

We have the tomy yellow star, it projects pictures (cartoon frogs and bugs) so more interesting for an older baby than just stars.