Stop feeding 19 month overnight

[Cheesetoastiees]

I desperately want to stop breastfeeding my 19 month old DS overnight.
We decided my DH would do the settling however every time he comes in to settle he screams himself hoarse. My DH panics and brings him to me and inevitably he ends up feeding.

I’m getting a bit sick of it as it’s less than 10 mins before DH brings himself to me and I don’t feel DS is learning anything other than if he screams he’ll get me. I just think he has to deal with a bit of screaming. It’s just the one feed in the night I’m trying to drop, but it lasts for ages. It wakes me up and I can’t get back to ghetto for hours and I’m exhausted. He says he’ll just scream for ages and never settle.

DH thinks he’ll just not settle at all and says because they had some difficult nights months ago where I couldn’t he there and DS literally screamed for 6 hours three nights, he just can’t do it.

Is there any techniques or advice or anything we can use? We are just getting grumpy with each other.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/parenting @Cheesetoastiees

It's totally doable. It's a good age to do it, too. The feeding isn't necessary like it was as a newborn, it's a habit/sleep association. Could you offer water in a sippy cup? My dd (3) has recently learned that if she wakes in the night and screams she gets a banana. We've had to stop this as she is now specifically waking to get a banana, screaming to get it. You have to offer a replacement (in our case, sitting with her and comforting her and then slowly cutting down the amount of time she gets comfort). DH has to accept there will be screaming. I've read somewhere if you woke in the middle of the night and were served chocolate, you'd start waking for chocolate. It's the same with toddlers and night milk, if they're offered something as blissful as breast milk in the night, they'll wake for it specifically. Once removed, you've just removing a "treat" so of course there will be resistance! DH needs to give it at least an hour before resorting to other measures, imo.

When we did it, we used Ferber. Going in, comforting, letting her cry for 2 mins, comforting, letting her cry for 4 mins etc. worked really well!

Dd was 19 months when she slept 6-6 for three nights in a row. I thought I was in heaven. On the fourth night, she woke up but I said no but did give a drink of water instead. And then we spoke about getting to be a big girl the next day. That worked well enough. She still woke up for water but it was brief so I was happy with that.

With yours, could I suggest sleeping in the spare room so dh can say mummy isn’t here right now. And can show him the bed without you in it. Tell ds in advance that you will be out so daddy will be doing midnight stuff so there won’t be any feeding.

YANBU at that age I'd expect them to be eating enough to sustain them through the night. I'd offer a water and a quick cuddle before putting back down.

I found it easiest to be the one to offer comfort when weaning my eldest was 23 months when fully weaned and youngest 15 months.
They didn’t want DH as he is not the comfort source at night, I would just put many layers on so they couldn’t access my breasts and insisted no more milk but cuddled them back to sleep. It involved a lot of crying but I think it was easier on them knowing I was still there for them.