Toddler breastfeeds through the night. Feels like torture sometimes. AIBU to night wean?

[Peridotty]

15 month old likes to breastfeed in the night. She will wake up crying 4 times in the night. It takes me a few seconds to breastfeed her back to sleep so that’s what I have been doing to get some peace. But she sometimes comfort sucks for an hour and it’s just torture because I can’t sleep when she is sucking. When I unlatch her she wakes up and cries. My husband and I are both exhausted!! We haven’t slept more than 3 hours in a stretch since she was born.
AIBU to night wean? Her dad will be in the room with her holding her for comfort if she wakes up if required and I’ll sleep on the sofa. I feel cruel but things are unsustainable right now!!! Any experience of night weaning a toddler?

This is the thread that I needed to read today - I really need to night wean my daughter, who is nearly three. 😐 The night-time comfort sucking is the WORST.

Are you starting tonight? Shall we both give it a go?

Anyone done this as a single parent with 3 older ones, two of which have additional needs?

17m DS4 still feeds a LOT over night and utterly loses his shot 0-60 in 0.5 seconds if I don't immediately permit access to a boob. He is inconsolable and does not back down. At all.

No the children don't go to their dads over night we use a nesting method of co-parenting and he finds any form of forced development leaps abhorrent so wouldn't facilitate night weaning before DS is ready. He does come over a few days a week at 6am to take over and let me sleep. He also does at least one tea/baths/beds routine a week.

I'm on my knees but not sure how or even if its possible in my situation to make this easier.

Oh to add DS's 2 and 3 have their own issues and if DS4's night time wailing wakes or disturbs them I end up with an adhd 10 year old wandering the house all night and a spike in epileptic seizures in the 6 year old as his epilepsy is worsened by sleep deprivation.

Any ideas?

@Outfoxedbyrabbits that's not a proper peer reviewed article, it's of very limited value.

There are quite a few proper studies which show that there is an increased risk of caries in babies who are bf for over 12 months, there are also some which say that the increase is due to other factors.
If you read through some of the articles here.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=breastfeeding+caries

OP I'm not surprised you're knackered. Time to stop!

@underneaththeash

that's not a proper peer reviewed article

No, it's a blog post. The two dozen or so references for the information in it are at the bottom of the page.

[quote underneaththeash]@Outfoxedbyrabbits that's not a proper peer reviewed article, it's of very limited value.

There are quite a few proper studies which show that there is an increased risk of caries in babies who are bf for over 12 months, there are also some which say that the increase is due to other factors.
If you read through some of the articles here.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=breastfeeding+caries

OP I'm not surprised you're knackered. Time to stop![/quote]
The article is a summary of peer reviewed studies and research though, so is a valid and interesting read.

Of course YANBU
I went back to work on nights when my DS was 13 months. Felt cruel to be kind but it did the trick

YANBU. Night wean for sure.

YNBU, I wanted to give up night feeding but didn’t know how. Then I had to, and found a cuddle and a bit of a rock got DS back to sleep just as well. He was 19 months and if I’d known it would be that easy, I would have done sooner.

Plenty of advice out there for beginning breastfeeding, precious little about stopping!

I did what @89redballoons did and it worked surprisingly well. Mine was a bit older, had a bit of raging the first couple of nights, after that would happily settle with just a cuddle. Total game changer.

Hark at babies not needing to breastfeed at night past six months shock Given the small size of their stomachs and the fact that breastnilk provides their fluid as well as calorie intake I'd be amazed if this was true for more than a minority.

Maybe not 6 months, but by 15 months she can just as easily get any nighttime fluids she needs in the form of water. Easier, in fact because the op doesn't need to be involved with providing it past giving her dd a bottle of water at bedtime.

Thanks to all the replies. We started night weaning 5 nights ago and so far she has not had any breastmilk until the morning. First night was a bit hairy- my husband had to hold her throughout the night and she cried on and off. Second, third and fourth nights she cried less. Fifth night she managed to sleep from 8pm all the way to 4.30am without waking up!!! Amazing!