Help! 13 month breastfed baby

[Alwaystired91]

Hi everyone, I’m looking for some advice/reassurance/ solidarity here. My LO is 13 months old and is still obsessed with being breastfed all throughout the day and into the night. She’s not the biggest solid eater but I still offer a hearty breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks throughout the day as well as a little bowl of banana porridge about 45 mins before bed. She goes to bed around 7pm then wakes at 8pm, sleeps until 10.30pm quick feed to sleep, back up throughout the night every 2 hours until we wake at 7am. I’ve tried stopping feeding to sleep and she becomes hysterical. I’ve tried going in and giving her a cuddle but she goes straight for the boob. She’s even worse if dad even attempts to get her down. All throughout the day she wants to feed every 2 hours even if I try distractions or offer food. I genuinely feeling like I’m losing the will. I’m due back to work full time in the next 2 weeks and she’s due to start nursery and this is causing me some serious stress and anxiety wondering how she will cope. Any suggestions?

I think I would tackle it by doing some gentle night weaning now, before you start back to work.

Onfe she’s at Nursery you can feed on wake up, on pick up and before bed. She will probably eat just fine at Nursery l and won’t need milk.

Then if you want to start dropping those feeds too, come back to us and we’ll talk you through it

Just thought of some other tips. If she’s feeding a lot in the day, have you tried just feeding in one place and then making sure you don’t sit there?

Offering a different drink might help too so think things like milk whizzed up with banana and whatever other fruit you have in or hot chocolate.

Does she have a no-spill cup with water in so that she’s not feeding often through thirst?

A book like Milkies in the Morning might help too

Thank you for coming back to me. We tried this method a few months ago and it didn’t work. She was hysterical and wouldn’t settle to the point she made herself sick. We have tried again and she will not settle at all without being fed back to sleep. Tonight her dad held her while I put my pjs on ready to take her to bed and she got herself so worked up because I refused to BF until I was changed. I feel like nothing is going to work at this point and if she can be like it with her dad then I dread to think how she will be at nursery. I was up all night having bad dreams about it and having to quit!

Hace you tried the don’t offer don’t refuse method? So if she wants BFing you do but you never offer. The theory is that it makes less of a fuss about BFing for her.

There’s some more information on it here

My dd was like this, but then always slept better at nursery than with us! She also ate better with them once she settled in fully, so infuriating, but I think she just learned by copying the others. Hopefully your little one is similar.

We introduced a cup of milk at bedtime around 14 months (warmed jersey milk or my milk) I don't remember exactly how it went but I do remember a lot of protesting and it working better for DH than me. Stopped bf arpund 18 months and it didn't make a huge difference to sleep. She's now 2.5 and sleeps through 80-90% of the time, other times she'll wake up once for a quick cuddle. It does get better!