To ask for help getting my child to sleep?

[goodeyebrows]

My DS is 20 months old and I don't want to breastfeed anymore. I usually lay down with her to get her to sleep every night and she feeds on and off as she chooses. Tonight I'm trying not to lie down with her and just sitting quietly in her room. It's not going well.

She's crying a lot, getting very upset and climbing out of the small gap at the end of her bed where the bed guard doesn't reach. I'm sat here on my phone ignoring her until she's completely out of bed then I pick her up, put her back and give her her dummy.

Any hints or tips or stories of positive outcomes in similar situations I can sit here and read so I don't cave and lie down with her?

My ds is still breastfed and I can't figure out how I'll ever stop! Good luck to you

Can her father help? With two of mine they were still wanting a night feed to settle back to sleep when they woke in the middle of the night. My DH went in and gave a cuddle & settled them. After a couple of nights they weren't waking for feeds. Different to bedtime I know but maybe she would respond differently to someone else?

Get your partner to put her down

Get your partner to do bedtime but if it needs to be you, I would suggest not taking your phone in, the lights may disturb her.

Same here, my dd is 18 months and although I love bf its getting to much now.
She has as much as a newborn, using me as a dummy really.
Wakes up about 10 times a night (every half an hour) im exhausted and starting having hallucinations which obviously is not good.
Tried most things to help her self settle but nothing seems to be working.

It took 30 minutes of putting her straight back in bed and then she slept through I til 6am for the first time ever. Fingers crossed it goes as well tonight.

DH did bedtime for a week. DS still wants boob if I put him down but I refuse. Thankfully he's still in a cot so no climbing out of bed. We still breastfeed morning and after nursery though and have no idea how we'll stop that!

An alternative route is to start talking about your boobs (or whatever you call them) are 'all gone' or another term she'll understand.

This is probably far from the right way to do it but I used to BF my DD to sleep every night in the same way and how I managed to stop this was by giving her a bottle of (non dairy) milk in her cot for her to drink herself to sleep. Worked but is probably far from an ideal solution

Thanks everyone, I'm about to start bedtime round two. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Basically what your doing for two weeks solid then after that went fine.

So you normally lie next to her while she goes off to sleep, breastfeeding her.....there's your problem right there. She is used to that, so now can't sleep without it. The best you can do is put her down and walk away. Shut the door. Go back every so often, don't make a fuss, and put her back to bed. Increase the amount of time between visits. It will eventually work.

I did this at 18months. Only thing that worked was DH giving a bottle. So we're still doing that before bed. We (usually DH) stay in the room till DS asleep which is usually about 15-20mins (was 60-90mins with boob). Not sure when we'll wean off bottle, but not too fussed about that yet. Good luck!

Here we go again

Five minutes in and she's already stopped crying. So far she's got out of bed about three times but is currently lying quietly. Last night was the first night she slept through properly, neither of us had to go into her once and she woke up at 6am. I don't want to jinx it but it seems to be going rather well.

It took less than 10 minutes. This is amazing. Why did I not do it earlier?