To think I'll never sleep again and just give in

[Wishfulmakeupping]

Bf 1 year old just does not sleep well. I want to stop feeding but nowhere near that. He's currently waking 6-7 times a night- I'm on my knees with tiredness.
Dh tries to help but I can't listen to ds crying and shouting for me plus I have a 3 year old did I don't want to wake up. I've tried filling him up more, dream feed, putting extra covers on, changing him to bigger cot, just offering water, giving him dummy, cutting out all caffiene, speaking to health visitor...nothing works! A
Am I better to just give up and resign myself to never sleeping again?!

Felicia yes and no. I'll be brutally honest with myself here, but frankly it's not bad enough yet. I know if he has milk, he'll go back to sleep, whereas if we offer water and he refuses, he will then be awake and we'll all have a disturbed night. I keep saying to dh that we really need to do the week of pain to get him sleeping through, but we never quite manage it. He's my 3rd, so you'd think I would know what I was doing by now! I find that because he had the milk at night, he doesn't eat well, so then I feel that maybe he is genuinely hungry in the night....catch 22!
I should start my own thread really, rather than detail the op's but I always find it reassuring to hear others are in the same boat and hearing everyone's advice

But then if you stopped the night milk and endured the pain, then he would eat better in the day, and not need the milk at night?
Sounds easier said than done but maybe think of it this way- the earlier you break his bad habits, the less painful it will be and the less traumatic it will be for him. You don't need to use any particular harsh method of sleep training but even just baby steps might be the way forward.

New age my dc4 was exactly the same would wake between 1 and 3 times a night for a full bottle. It started with just one wake but it was getting worse and worse. I went to see my hv to see what she suggested as I was exhausted being up so much then having 3 other children to look after. It was also starting to affect his eating he was really picky and not eating very much.
She pointed out that the problem was every time he was waking he was using the bottle to get himself off to sleep as that's what I was offering as a solution to him waking up and it was up to me to offer another solution.
It was pretty basic advice but so right. We chose to go cold turkey and get rid of bottles completely and swapped the formula in a bottle to cows milk in a sippy cup. When he woke we would go in and shush him and pat him and offer water. He was furious for the first two nights and lots of crying but on night 3 he didn't wake and has never had a bottle since and sleeps reasonably well most of the time.
I think there comes a time for everyone when you get to "I can't take this anymore phase" and I had definitely got there!
His eating improved massively and he eats a wide range of food except anything green. It was really was worth doing for us.

Aha! Mine was similar - hence why I took a week off work to crack it!

We co sleep and as ds was just about to hit 6 months we were told by midwife to stop night feeds (we were on one 1/2am and one 5am). Stopped night feeds and have gradually increased day feeds (coming off breast to mix to full bottle - mix of breast milk and sma). In 3 weeks he no longer wakes for night feeds and we all finally sleep! We realised it was important to make sure he had enough milk during the day to stop him wanting more at night

That should be three days, it took us three weeks to gradually increase his day feed volume whilst reducing the number of feeds themselves

Buttwing Very similar experience with both my DTs. Switched from milk to water and after a couple of nights they stopped waking up.

We had luck with the Dr Jay Gordon method for night weaning, it's gentle and we saw huge leaps of improvement in about 4 days. I did it at about 16 months asy DS was waking so often for milk, it was fab for us. I hope you find something that helps, its awful!

Thank you lovely lot- baby slept from 7.45 to 6.30 this morning!! He's been getting gradually better all week and now first night through amazing 😁

That's awesome!

I've put ds age 15 months on a strict regime this week- so no formula milk in daylight hours, I'm writing down what he's eating, and offering cows milk in a cup at lunch and breakfast.

No noticeable worsening of sleep, but no great improvement, although this is only day 3. The fact that he had only one bottle yesterday, instead of 5!!!, and yet didn't show any real signs of missing it probably means he's lazy just using milk instead of food, and doesn't really need it.

Well done op- I haven't read the full thread since I last posted- did you do controlled crying, or has he just naturally turned a corner?

What have you been doing OP? DS is 17 months and still feeds 3-4 times a night. He's not hungry but is a very unsettled sleeper and he'll go back to sleep quickly if he gets boob. We co sleep so I'm not disturbed too much as DS helps himself but DH is in the spare room still which isn't really fair! Although DS is much cuter to share a bed with....