AIBU to let my baby cry

[MyBoldFinch]

My baby is almost 14 months old and I’ve always done all the bedtimes and naps his whole life. He is with my husband a lot but just hasn’t been settled by him before for sleep. I tend to feed to sleep.

I would now like to try to get my husband to get him down and resettle him when he wakes in the night sometimes but I am a bit at a loss as to how to make this transition smooth.

My husband is trying to resettle him from an overnight wake now with cuddles and patting but he’s just crying and crying. How long do I leave it before I go and intervene? Previously after a while I’ll just go in and take over but it feels like nothing changes that way. Help!

Bottles are different to BF though. Its recommended to wean off them at 12 months because of teeth and jaw development - so you wouldn't start one at 14 months.

@m00ngirl thanks for that - and sorry didn’t mean for it to be a personal attack or derail the thread. I’ve just seen a lot of these threads where women are at the end of their tether and keep being told how harmful it is to let their baby cry a bit (I know that’s not what you were saying btw) so I think my previous post was more exasperation in general at the lack of support and willingness for people to say to women “trust your gut, you will be fine - it’s ok to make choices that that are different to others”

But I also 100% take your point that she’s asked on a public forum for advice so you’re absolutely right in that there will be differing opinions and need to expect and accept that

Every kid is different - trust yourself. After months of exhausting miserable night-time put-downs using recommended methods that worked for others, and took anywhere between an hour and 90 minutes, we gave “letting the baby cry for ten minutes then soothe them and try again” a go, and I swear our DC was settling down faster and happier in under a week. (And yes we were checking on them, and yes there were actually sleeping peacefully not cowering in miserable silence like some would have you believe) DC is 7 now and remains an affectionate, secure child with no brain issues or attachment hang ups. If you give something a go and it doesn’t work and you stop & try something else, you won’t have scarred them for life. I believe it’s persisting with things that upset them that actually does the damage.

You need to do a sleep time with no boob successfully first before dh can do it.

I disagree - I think it's easier for the person with no boobs to settle without BF! DH can settle much quicker than I can, because with me DD fights sleep and expects to feed, whereas with DH she just lies down and wants to hold his hand.

I agree with others that you should work on getting them to fall asleep at bedtime independently or with dad first - then when they’ve mastered that, start night weaning. For us it was really worth it - he went from waking three or four times a night to sleeping through every night unless he’s ill.

I would say think not just about when the baby is ready but when you’re ready too - we might weaned at 17 months and he did cry a lot the first few nights but I was really suffering with the lack of sleep - and I was also already pregnant 😂

A couple of tips:

1. we loaded him up with his favourite foods during the day so we were confident he wasn’t actually hungry
2. rather than shushing him in the dark, which made him really angry, we found it more effective when my husband took him for a walk around the house to show him every room was dark and then acted out all of his stuffed toys going to sleep. Then my husband put him to sleep in the same way he’d done at bedtime.

We had a couple of failed attempts before we succeeded so if you did go in to stop the crying, don’t worry - give it a couple of weeks and then try again!

100% this. Your baby is falling asleep for the night on the boob and then is waking looking for it. You have to do the initial falling asleep with the same method you're going to use in the night, otherwise it's just madly confusing for the baby (and yes, results in a lot of tears).