To think I'd get my evenings back by now?

[BananaHammock23]

Posting here for traffic hoping someone can help or at least share some hopeful stories.

My 16mo DS has never been a good sleeper. We cosleep and I still breastfeed - I feel like this is probably contributing to the problem.

My problem is that I'd really like to get my evenings back. Even if just a stretch from 7-10pm so we could spend time together without worrying or even have friends over for dinner or go out for a few hours with my mum babysitting.

We have a pretty good 7-7 routine. We do bath, book and bed and he tends to go down pretty quickly on the boob. The problem is that he then wakes up every 20 minutes-ish until I go to bed. Then he wakes up every 3 hours (on a good night). We can have anything between 2-8 wake ups a night. He has one nap a day at around 11.30/12 for 1-2 hours. This doesn't seem to make much difference to the nights.

How can I get him sleeping through, even just for that first stretch? I'd love another baby and I can't even imagine how that'll happen until DS is at least sleeping a few hours.

I have a supportive partner who does try and do their share but it does tend to fall to me in the evenings because it's quicker for me to feed him back to sleep than it is for them to rock him.

Anyway I'm tried and feel like I have no time to myself at all. I'm desperate. Any advice?

I wonder if he's overtired. That's a short nap, and a long time to be awake before bed time. Could you try an earlier nap in the morning and one early afternoon?

@MeadowLanes hmm maybe. I follow his lead on naps really, and would let him sleep longer/earlier/later if he wanted. We dropped from two naps to one because he was fighting sleep at bedtime. Even on two naps we had the same problem with regular wakings, particularly at the start of the night.

Sorry OP you probably don't want to hear this but mine woke every hour for the first 2 years till I stopped breastfeeding. Then it became a 3-5 hour stretch and now is all night minus once or twice to see I'm still in my bed. I wanted to breastfeed till 2 so waited till then and told myself it'll get better. It certainly did.

Stop feeding him to sleep. Until he learns how to fall asleep without the boob you’re going to be stuck in this cycle. You don’t have to sleep train and leave him to cry on his own, but he does need to learn how to get himself to sleep independently and that may involve tears and upset.

I genuinely fed my DD every time she woke until she was 16 months old, her sleep was horrendous because of this. Once I stopped feeding her to sleep and night weaned, she slept through 12hrs within 2 weeks.

Literally life changing.

He needs to fall asleep independently. You have to stop breastfeeding or rocking him to sleep. It will take 3 days max and you'll get your evenings back.
My opinion is that it is bad for you and your relationship to carry on like this. Your baby will be upset but he won't traumatise him and this is for the greater good.
You'll be wondering why you didn't do this earlier.

He needs to learn to get to sleep by himself, not the boob, otherwise every time get comes out of a sleep cycle (which we all do) he relies on you to get him to sleep.

Research 'self-soothing' methods, essentially you put them to bed sleepy but not asleep and let them fall asleep themselves.

Good luck x x

This.
Do yourself the biggest favour ever and break this sleep association.

You could try letting your DP settle him every time during the evening. It might take longer but if he is waking for milk and it's always DP then the incentive to keep waking up is not there. I know that worked for a friend of mine.

It might be worth just getting your dh to do all the bedtimes and the wakings for a week or two (even if just for the first half of the night). Yes it'll take longer and be a pain for your dh but it'll break that habit, and if he doesn't get any milk when he wakes you may well find he starts sleeping better. I also breastfed & co-slept and this is what we did, worked a treat. Then you can start to phase out the rocking, just go to holding, then lying next to him etc etc.

Sympathy, op. I remember these days well. I breastfed to sleep and was constantly back and forth all evening. Dh wanted to help and do his fair share but ds would (and still does) only want me a night.
I didn't do anything to change it despite being fed up, and was fortunate that DS started sleeping through the night at 17 months old. His nap time being all over the place meant that I still didn't really have an evening. He dropped his nap 2 weeks after his 2nd birthday and suddenly he slept through 12 hours. Again, nothing I did, it was all just following his lead. But I know that's easier said than done when you're exhausted, want some time and every kid is different so you have no idea when that's going to happen. Your evenings will come back again.

I don't really have any advice on how to help but just wanted to say I hear you, I've been there, it's bloody hard but it doesn't last forever ( even though it feels like it will!)

I night weaned DD1 pretty gently by gradually extending the length of time between feeds. So at first if she woke up within two hours of being fed, I settled her to sleep without feeding. Then three hours. Then four. By the time we got to five hours she had stopped waking up a lot of the time anyway.

She was a bit annoyed at first but I never left her to cry, I sat beside her and soothed etc.

Time. Both of mine were like this. One was ff and off bottles but then and the other was bf. They were both shit at sleeping.

The book 'the no cry sleep solution' taught me how to wean baby off boobing to sleep and night feeds in general. I didn't follow the whole boring plan but I did use their advice to gently teach baby to fall asleep by himself. It wasn't a quick fix (took about 6 weeks altogether) but it wasn't particularly painful either, no crying, no leaving baby alone (which I would've found very difficult). And omg it was worth it. Baby began sleeping longer stretches and now sleeps through at least 4 nights a week, and otherwise only wakes once. When I tell you a few months ago this would've felt like a pipe dream!

Hand the nights over to your partner. Cold turkey. He goes in with a sippy cup of water whenever your son wakes. You might want to get out of the house for a bit each night otherwise you will be tempted to intervene when you hear your son crying.

You need to leave them to it to figure it out together. Your partner will learn how to soothe him and your son will learn to receive soothing cuddles from his dad. If you step in then you're just going to confuse your son and your partner will never find his own way.

It might fall back to him needing you when he's sick and breast milk is a huge comfort, but once you break the connection the first time round and he gets used to settling for your partner it will be easier to get back to it again any time old habits return.

I never do nights anymore but I will breastfeed if my son (14 months) has a fever or a cough that keeps waking him in the night. As soon as he's well again I stop going through to him.

Please can I ask how you did this?

I've fallen into this routine with DS (a bottle of cows milk, not BF) but the same applies - he wakes, I feed and we've fallen into this awful routine of him waking regularly 😣

He's full of cold atm and wanting extra comfort so I'll wait until he's feeling better but we all really need some better quality sleep in the NY.

The whole of mumsnet will probably drive me out but a bottle of formula will help baby sleep longer.

Get a bedtime routine in place. Eg: Bath, breastfeed, bed at 7pm. Mine had dropped their 2am and 10pm feed by now and had been sleeping through in their own bed, for many months by now.
Can you make small adjustments now to make this happen?

100% break the link between sleeping and feeding or rocking. DH is your best bet to do it. Be determined and don't break. Better for you all. Once those are gone then you can look at learning to sleep by themselves.

@LookingForANewJob2023

My son now only has a bottle of milk before bed. He's recently stopped the comfort night feeds as he had a really bad cough so I was offering him water in his normal water cup instead. He's gone without any milk in the night since. If he wakes I give him water.

Another trick is to slowly water down the milk until it's water.

I could have written this too about DS at his age. I'm afraid I stopped BF at this point too and it did improve.

I'm sorry to pick out someone but this passé view of @Doowop1919 is not the only way. There are other options. Many posters would have been more proactive and made minor changes prior to age? Say 12 mths, to not allow any of this to happen.

Thanks so much for all your words of wisdom! I suppose I've known in the back of my mind that BFing to sleep was causing the issue, but it's hard when you get into that cycle of being so tired bc you're BFing all the time that you don't have the energy to try and night wean!

DS has had an ear infection this week and his sleep has been even more awful than usual bc of his temp, but I think this has been the straw that's broke the camel's back really. I'm just so exhausted.

@Hotchocfudgecake it sounds like your situation was very similar. How did you might wean?

I've not had an evening for 13 years lol

I'm breastfeeding my 2yo and 11mo. I co slept with both, up to 8mo with my first and my second went in her cot 3 weeks ago. I always boobed to sleep and would boob overnight when co sleeping but then I sleep trained when moving them into their cot. My 2yo recently fell back into a bad habit of waking wanting boob sometimes twice a night! I got fed up so sent DH in each time til he realised no boob and now it's much better. My 11mo I will offer boob if she doesn't settle but there are nights she does sleep through. However since sleep training or breaking that association I have my evenings back 😬 good luck. The Ferber book is a good read if that is something you would consider. Its awful but like pp said after 3 nights or so it makes a big difference.

Sounds exactly like my co-sleeping breastfeeding 18 month old, if I'm not in the room she wakes every 15-20 mins so I just go to bed at 7:30 now 😬