Where's the fire?

[chicca]

It?s been ages since my last post but my excuse is that we had a fire in the house here in Spain and everything has been super chaotic. Fortunately we were in England at the time and it was caught before the whole place burnt down. It?s taking forever to get up and running again and trying to clean everything up is an unforgiving task.

Mixed in with this are my attempts to stop bf the boy (now 13 months) and to get him to sleep at night not bf and not in bed.

My new conclusion (practically a new one everyday) is that actually he doesn?t need to be bf to go to sleep (as I had thought) but needs the closeness that he has got used to by lying next to me being bf to sleep and during the night. At the moment, mad as it sounds, I am sitting in the cot-bed with him (!!) and he is falling to sleep on my lap or next to me some other way (after at least an hour).

So, my question is, has anyone else had this experience? Does anyone have any thoughts as to how to keep the gentle removal process going.

I am definitely not up for CC, I have the Pantley book, he still repeatedly wakes during the night ? at which stage I am still bf back to sleep (last night in the cot again!).

Boring these sleep threads aren?t they>.................

[Hattie05]

HI, sorry to hear about your fire!!

Sounds like you're doing similar to me with weaning off comfort and breastfeeds! Keep going, trust your instincts and you'll get there in the end. Lots of patience = contented little boy eventually .

Froma around 15mths i started thinking about stopping the breastfeeding. This is the time we moved dd to a matress on the floor as she hated her cot. I had been laying bf her on my bed, and when in deep sleep i'd put her into her cot. Then she'd wake a few hours later and be in bed with us for the rest of the night and who knows how many bf's during that time i was asleep! .

Anyway, i did, as you are doing, very gradual moving away. Steps went something like this.

Laying in her bed and bf her.
Laying next to her without bf (for a good few weeks she'd have the odd feed, but just slowly wittled down until my milk dried up).
Sitting by side holding hand till she fell asleep.
Creeping out of room as she was getting into sleepy state - but thats where it got tricky as she started to get scared of being left. I actually resorted to being quite firm and telling her if she didn't stay in her bed i'd shut the door. Next time she got up, i shut the door and held it, she screamed blue murder for two mins, then i'd go back in, settle her down and say now i'm leaving, if you get out of bed i will shut the door again.
This did the trick and ever since, she is more than happy for us to leave her after stories. (but still crawls into our bed at some point in the early hours - but secretly i enjoy those cuddles). She is now 2.6yrs.

I fretted and fretted that shutting the door, was going to give her a real fear of the whole bedtime routine, but i didn't know what else to try. Thankfully i only had to do it a small number of times before she got the message and she really has not been affected by it. Occasionally if she's playing up i say " you don't want me to have to shut the door now do you" and it does the trick!

I sound evil don't i?

[chicca]

Not evil at all. Good to hear a non-CC success story.