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?

Yes lots of mums work and don’t have family support in the uk, I agree with that. But not sure what that has to do with the basic sleep requirements of children? Whether breastfed or not, Co sleeping or not, small children need a certain amount of sleep per day for their development, and they aren’t getting that if it’s broken because they wake up stressed and crying every couple of hours.

Of course, small babies are different, they need a feed and some comfort every few hours. As with teething, illness, or if something is going on - a house move, new sibling etc. But generally, as with all children I think toddlers need their 14 hours a day, and that’s going to be difficult to obtain if they’re waking up stressed out all evening.

I definitely don’t think anyone needs to give up breastfeeding or co sleeping to get that
though. I breastfed and co slept with all
mine! But I do think you owe it your child to provide them with the tools to have a continuous, restful sleep each night, whether that’s via sleep training or whatever method you choose.

THIS, it is true and 1 bottle of formula before 'bed' will not hurt anything. I was not able to breast feed at all due to illness, my baby was a wonderful sleeper on formula. He is now a 6ft tall healthy 13 year old.

I've just managed to knock this on the head after 3 years. I really wanted to get her onto a bottle after a year, but she would not take one at all. I tried to night wean but she got so distressed I just had to feed to sleep until she was old enough for me to verbally set ground rules. Finally now she's turned 3 we stopped night feeding and she sleeps pretty much all night. So if you can wean earlier, it makes so much difference!!

It's no crime to stop breastfeeding.

100%!! Its ridiculous! As is the “it’s only in the uk that it’s normal for children to have a set bedtime and sleep through”. No it’s not!! Children in other countries don’t have a magical ability to survive on less sleep!

My son didn’t sleep through until he was 4. He also used to fall asleep feeding until he was at least 2, probably 3. It’s hard to say when exactly he gave it up entirely. However, since he was 4, he has slept through, in his own bed practically every night, after a hug and a story, then falls asleep on his own.
My daughter, also breast fed, slept through the night from about 2 months old, after cluster feeding all night. She stopped feeding at about 20 months, when I was heavily pregnant.
However, she also stopped sleeping through the night, and still hates being on her own to fall asleep. She has been diagnosed with ASD.
So I have a son who didn’t sleep until aged 4, but has slept every night since, and a daughter who slept through until about 2 years old, and then hasn’t slept since. She is now 11!!!
Every child is different. Definitely take the advice from the people who have posted, which you think could work for you, but not from those who you think don’t match your parenting style. However, also follow your instincts. I actually wonder if the extended feeding and cuddles through the night when he was young, benefited him by keeping his cortisol low and we have a lovely, calm son. My daughter on the other hand. Well we attend a sleep clinic for her!
Good luck x

I'll be honest - just go with what works for you. Keep tweaking things that you think might help. Changing one thing might affect another. Then a few days or weeks will pass and another development stage will change everything again!

My DS is a perfectly healthy 9 year old. But has never been a great sleeper. It goes in peaks and troughs. We're just coming out of a 6months each phase of struggling to get to sleep and nightmares. We'd do bedtime routine put him to bed with cuddles at about 7.30 - 8 and he'd still call up about 3-5 times until about 9.30. - 10. We're now down to him coming down (instead of screaming for us to go up) just once about 8.30.

So unfortunately we're still waiting t get our evenings back after 9years! It's just part of life now and we work around it.

A 16 month old doesn’t need milk overnight.
you will need to do sleep training and make sure they have enough to eat in the day and a drink of milk before bed.
your baby is not going to suddenly miraculously start sleeping through because it’s in a routine of waking and getting mums boob every few hours.
it will be a few painful nights and then you will be asking yourself why on earth you didn’t do this before. Good luck!

I agree, had to do this a few times just to get some time without him latched on. Or of not a bottle then some food such as rusk or something

Sorry, I think you’re being a bit optimistic. We didn’t truly get evenings “back” until they started school.

You’ve missed the point and are getting mixed up. The talk of children in different societies was in support of mum continuing to breastfeed and co sleep (if that’s what she wanted to do). As like you rightly said children from other cultures don’t survive on less sleep, it’s just their social norm to co sleep and bf until they’re older.

But what’s that got to do with not ‘having an evening’?
Are you implying that if you breastfeed and cosleep, you sacrifice every evening to the needs of your child? I (and lots of my friends) have breastfed for years, and co slept just because it’s easier and quite nice, but I’ve never had a child (and I’ve got a few..) who doesn’t go to sleep at some point between 7 and 8 and generally sleep through till morning. And I can’t see how that’s different in other countries?

Sorry - should have clarified I was talking about older babies. I'm not sure now what the book said about when this would apply but I didn't mean to suggest it would be appropriate for a 2 week old.

Yes this is me. I go to bed between 8 and 9.30 ds depending. Following this thread for hopeful help

No one said you 'couldn't'.

Didn't breastfeed but my bottle fed baby used to wake every other hour for a short feed still at 18 months. Only when we night weaned and stopped offering him milk did he sleep through.

It’s not me implying that at all! I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick with my argument.
Other people were implying that the OP had to night wean from breastfeeding, give formula and have the baby in their own room.
My point was that it is biologically normal for baby’s to breastfeed past 1 year old, it’s culturally normal in most countries to bed share and that it is our society that implements these ‘rules’ around when breastfeeding and co sleeping should stop. There were lots of PPs stating that the OP MUST stop breastfeeding to get her evenings back. I was arguing the opposite. That if she wanted to continue doing either of those things she could, that it would be completely normal to do so (after one PP called those ideas bizarre) and that there were other ways she could ‘get her evenings back’ without having to stop co sleeping or breastfeeding if that’s what she wanted.
I hope that’s clearer now.

I contacted Julia Fensom the sleep consultant and she was fantastic with me getting mine sleeping through x

I've been fascinated by this thread! Genuine question. (And I'm not being snide or provocative or judgemental.) Some people have said that it's normal in other countries to co sleep (babies in bed with parents). Is this actually true or is it something someone once said and is now an accepted fact? In which countries is this the norm? I'm asking because when mine were babies, my health visitor insisted babies shouldn't co sleep...

The example that has stuck with me is Japan. Off the top of my head, 70% of parents there co-sleep and interestingly they also have one of the lowest rates of SIDS. I think when I last looked they were in the lowest 3, although there might be more up to date statistics on this.

So...waiting for my freezer to finish defrosting, coffee in hand, I did a bit of research on co sleeping in Japan (today is a boring day!) and found this from the
Tohoku Journal of Experimental Medicine
'Of those who received guidance from a medical professional, 36.1% practiced only co-sleeping while 60.1% practiced only side-lying breastfeeding. In the co-sleeping group, 10.6% had faced infant suffocation incidents, while 13.2% in the breastfeeding in the side-lying position group had faced similar incidents.'
The whole article is rather sobering...

Mine is 15 months and falls asleep on her own but is the only one of my 3 to do this. She has one nap too and its about 90 minutes from about 11am. She's in bed for 8pm and wakes at 7am. Many babies at this age will transition to one nap and you're following his lead which is good.

I'd consider night weaning and giving milk in a cup now but I don't know if that is something you'd be willing to try? This seems to be quite commonplace with my friends who are still breastfeeding but some have found that their Los are doing longer stretches since stopping the night feeds. It's tough for a week, maybe a few weeks if you go down that route as your partner will need to resettle him and he would need to go into his own room. Again it all depends on if you are willing to try any of these options.

This is quite interesting:

heysleepybaby.com/blog/cosleeping-cultural-norms-around-the-world-and-in-the-us

I think many people don't talk about it but majority of my friends coslept at least once. It's definitely safer than falling asleep while holding one's baby on the sofa. Some co-sleep every night, some just occasionally, some after the first stretch of sleep.
There is guidance for safety, safe sleep 7. For example smokers shouldn't cosleep or people who drank alcohol that day.

I certainly co slept with mine on occasions because of exhaustion. However, it was definitely frowned on at the time and in spite of it being common in many nations, I would still try not to do it because of the perceived or actual danger to the baby. But then, an exhausted mother is probably a danger, too!

@Snippysocks for me, it was a choice between the possibility of accidentally falling asleep while feeding (either sat up in bed or on the sofa, or laying on my bed) and creating a very unsafe scenario for my baby or preparing and planning to co-sleep so that my baby was more protected. There are risks with any choices you make, but I felt that by following the safe sleep 7 rules and co-sleeping in a controlled way I was doing what was best for my baby and I.

If you remove the risk factors of a parent that smokes or who has consumed alcohol that day, the rates of SIDS are around from 50/50 for cot sleepers and co-sleepers.