Still feeding to sleep at 13 months ahhhhhhhhhhh

[dogdaysareover]

Ds's sleep patterns are driving me to the brink of utter exhaustion. We co-sleep, am an AP type but not wanky enough to label it as such DS has always breastfed to sleep and STILL wakes about five times a night to feed comfort suck back to sleep. When I was on ML I found this irritating but felt I could cope because I could catch up in the day if I needed to. Now I am back at work this is a different story and I am so tired I feel constantly ill.

I am not comfortable with cio or cc and don't really know how those methods work when you co-sleep anyhow. I have tried a boob strike between the hours of 12am and 5am but this resulted in utter hysteria on DS's part for about two hours before I caved in and DH was woken up and not best pleased sounds terrible but he works very long hours and has a killer commute, which I don't so I do all nighttime parenting

I know I have made a rod for my own back etc etc, and that he will keep waking as long as I keep feeding. I do want to break the pattern but without resorting to cc I just don't know how. I have considered putting him in his cot because I wonder if the proximity and availability of boob adds to the problem, but I worry that this will make his sleep pattern even worse and frankly I am so exhausted I don't think I have the strength to see any major regime change through.

Any advice? Anyone been in this situation?

[Cies]

Have a read of this. I followed his advice when ds was about 15 months, and it worked. Although there were about 5 days of lots of protest from ds. I personally could cope with that by that point, as as the article says I was physically there comforting ds, just not in the exact way he would like (bf).

drjaygordon.com/attachment/sleeppattern.html

[dogdaysareover]

Thank you so much for that link. That article made a lot of sense and I will try to implement it tonight

[Cies]

Hope it goes well foryou.

[cleanandclothed]

Does he nap during the day? Where? How does he get to sleep for that nap? Choose the time of day that is easiest to get him to sleep and start with that one to not feed to sleep for - then extend it to another period of sleep when you feel confident enough.

Can you talk to DH about doing some night wakings for a bit? We did a month with DS where DH went in all the time during the night (it was only once a night though) so he got used to no milk - it took about a week for DS to get used to it, and about a month for me to be confident I could go in and he wouldn't expect milk.