Bet i'm bf dd forever

[agalch]

I bf ds2 for 2.5 years(he is nearly 10 now).Had dd August 2004 and still bf her although i'd planned to give up when she ws around a year old. haha! Don't mind most of the time but she sleeps with me most nights,feeds at least once in the night and i absolutely can't go out in the evening as she wants me for bedtime.Means no xmas night out for me.Love her to peices and feel so lucky to have a little girl after 2 boys but i'm shattered and need time out!!! Any advice??

Exactly aloha.
Always reckon the defining characteristic of motherhood is being unfeasibly delighted by very small things.

My day starts brilliantly when dd hasn't whinged about getting in the car and if ds can manage two days in the same pair of dungaress,I'm euphoric.

I do remember how I felt when dd did sleep through one night. I was like SUPERWOMAN. I remember literally skipping down some steps and thinking 'what a lovely day! like Spring' (a la fotherington-tomas) and realising it was because I had had a full night's sleep for once. Those days are gone now though . I have to get to grips with this!

Take a stand.
I love telling my dd in snotty tones
'I'm in charge actually' when the balance of powere tips a little too far in the pups' favour.

I bottlefed my ds1 (now 14) and switched to bf for my ds2(now 10) and he also was in bed at night and bf once or twice a night till he was 2.5 and also a real mummys boy. Now dd is the same and while i love bf her still i'm much older (34) this time and i'm bloody feeling it!!! My problem is that i can't bear to upset my kids,what a wuss eh? But i am going to my night out in December so they'll all have to look after her and get on with it while i behave really badly and get totally p**d.

I bf ds at nights until he was about 9m old. He was in a cot in his own room, but would come in with us when he woke, and would then feed hourly? all night. I was exhausted - didn't realise how exhausted until it stopped. The tiredness definitely contributed to my PND.

Then one night I didn't go to him when he cried (hard, but we had already done CC to get him to go to sleep in his cot). He went back to sleep, and literally, that was it. No more night feeds

I still feed him to sleep at 19m (bad mummy I know!), and first thing in the morning. BUT if I am not there, to my great surprise, he is fine. He has a cup of milk, and goes down fine with some wind down time. On occasion he has stayed up and played for hours past his bedtime, but so what? It's only now and again, and if I've had a late night, him having a lie-in is no major problem . Same for mornings. I was on the verge of giving up as I was so tired of having to get up every morning. DH will do one morning at the w/e, but I still did the bf first. Now I don't. DH takes him downstairs kicking and screaming, and within 30 seconds he's fine.

So give it a try - you might be surprised. Enjoy your night out, and don't worry!

Just wanted to put in another 2p worth on this subject as it has been on my mind - 9 months is rather young to wean from night feeds in my opinion. I always advise people struggling with night feeding to read this , but Dr. Gordon and Dr. Sears both advise against night time weaning while children are small. It is much better to wait until they have the comprehension to know what is going on. It is rather hard on a little one, who has always been cuddled to sleep and fed on demand, to suddenly have this comfort removed (though from knowing you on here I somehow feel sure your children are totally well-adjusted, Moondog ). However you know what I'm saying. If people are cracking up, then obviously something needs to change, but if we are just talking about needing to get to bed earlier and waiting a few more months before you can have an evening out, it is a very short period of your life when babies need us so intensely.

I do sympathise, honestly. Ds is a crap sleeper and there have been times I have felt like just walking out of the house and going to a hotel just so I could get some sleep!

I am sure your dd will cope with daddy for one night if you need to get out, agalch. Have a good time.

frannyandzooey - I think you've really got to look at individual circumstances rather than making a blanket statement like that. DS slept through from being 3 nights old. (11pm - 6am). When he was 4m old we moved house, and it all changed overnight. He started waking loads, and so we were co-sleeping and demand feeding all night. I'm sure the fact that this habit was broken in literally ONE night shows that it was just habit, and not need.

If somebody is tired, not even on the verge of cracking up, but not their normal self, they should try night weaning and see what happens. I hate to think that I might have gone on for months longer on a child-care guru's say-so.

ds still had night feeds/cuddles until about a year. I believe he genuinely needed it - either hunger/teeth/cold and there was no way I would deprive him of it. I just went to my bed at 9pm.

I loathe Dr Sears! Smug git.
I refuse to go to bed at the same time as dd. I need some child-free time otherwise I would go quite mad.
I am sure my dd does not need milk at night. I am going to crack this and stop the night feeds and hope that gets her out of the habit of waking, which probably means leaving dh to deal with her. Oh, how I envy people with good sleepers!

DD slept with us until she was 9/10 mo then she would go in her cot at 8pm and when she woke during the night she came in with us. She wasn't one for feeding every hour in the night though. At 10 mo she was down to one feed before bed and one at 6am. At 12 mo I just gave her a beaker of milk one night and she was fine with that, then one morning she never woke at 6am and asked for a feed so I didn't offer and gae her milk at 8am instead and we haven't looked back.

As for the cosleeping it was getting to be a nightmare as she was so wriggling and would turn over onto you, punch, kick and headbutt you. None of us were getting much sleep. We put her in her own room 2 weeks ago and she is practically sleeping through so it can be done is what I'm saying.

Oh and have a drink I did whislt BF you don't need to get totally hammered but a few drinks certainly helps.

aloha, similar story here, & it seems as though going to bed at the same time as ds is the only answer...!

fwiw we've recently stopped night feeds (ds is 9 mths) as i'm pretty sure it's habit rather than hunger. but the onus is def. on dh to go & sort him out when he wakes at 2/3/4am, as i think my going in to settle him wd prob make things worse - ie, 'i'm here, but you're NOT getting milk', cue one confused baby??
last night he went from 10pm to 5.45 without milk (tho he did wake a couple of times, which dh dealt with, pretty much just a small whinge & then back to sleep), so he can go all night without milk. i'm just waiting for the magic night when he doesn't bother waking up!

i've also started trying to regulate day feeds a bit more, to try & get a little routine in our lives. i have to get some work done (phd) in the new year, so i'm not going to be around all day as i have been (& ds until now has been allowed to feed/sleep etc whenever he fancies, which is ok i guess, but not really going to work in new year).

hmm, enough rambling, hth!

oh, also ds comes into our bed after his early morning feed (which i guess is any time after 4am? but preferably 5am ) & tho dh sleeps ok i think, i just can't. ds had been sleeping with us more than that until recently (starting off in his cot, in our bed by abt 2-3am), esp whilst teething, with his head on my pillow, & me balanced on the very edge of the bed...which makes for one v. tired & grumpy mummy, & i agree it's not fair on the babe or dh. (who calls me, affectionately (!) 'moody cow', which is just abt right!)

At 10 months old, I replaced ds's night feed with a bottle of water (he was bf & bottle fed). After two nights of water in a bottle he didn't bother to wake again at night (unless ill). The first "water night" he yelled a bit (about 10 minutes), the second he just threw the bottle down in disgust. I am not recommending that this is for everyone. But it was right for him and us at the time.

BTW we never co-slept as we had a cot-death scare with him at 6 weeks, and only a breathing detector monitor woke us to let us know he was not breathing. The monitor cannot be used if co-sleeping.

I think we may swap the breastfeed for being cuddled to sleep for a bit (by dh) and go from there.
I really hit the wall last night and felt so angry with her for waking me up, and really did NOT want to feed her.
And Dr Sears can guilt-trip all he likes, but if my tiredness is making me snappy and horrible with my poor ds, then something has to be done.
Also, dd has started crawling today, and stood alone for a few moments yesterday, so I hope that perhaps the added wakefulness was due the the big changes going on in her development and that she will now be so tired she will sleep all night!

aloha, re the anger with dd for waking up...do you get (or at least feel) snappy with dd in the day too? after a rough night (eg waking every hour) i can find it hard to be patient/fun etc with ds - & this makes me feel really awful & is so unfair on ds. just me?

No, I rarely feel snappy with dd (the baby) but yes I am afraid I do get snappy with ds (my 4 year old). And I feel awful about that. I know I am more patient and cheery and all round a nicer mummy when I get a decent night's sleep.
These days I sleep badly before she wakes - waiting for her to wake up - and badly afterwards - because she's in bed with me and I am lying on a four inch strip of bed, too scared to move!

aloha - could you shuffle a cot up to the side of your bed so that you had extra room - maybe even borrow an extra one just for a couple of months??
I'm sure she'll settle down in the next couple of months - my ds did and now only wakes if he has sore teeth or is cold.

Sorry, I didn't mean to be smug, guilt-trippy, or generalising, but it is my opinion that it is a bit young. We all have opinions about what is the best thing to do, and I felt I wanted to share this one. It seemed to be becoming a "lets wean them all before a year" advice thread and I wanted to add a different view point. I find it useful myself to hear others' opinions when I am deciding what to do, however apologies if this was not helpful.

Good luck everyone with getting some sleep!

I don't think it's about weaning faz,more about deciding when a baby can go without a night feed so poor old mum can have a rest.
Despite putting a stop to night feeds at what I thought was a resonable age,I b/fed for 30 months and 11 months respectively.

Your opinions are as valid as anyone's and I am interested in your perspective (as,I'm sure,are others) even if I don't entirely agree with it.

Aloha, forgive me for coming late to this thread and perhaps stating the bleedin' obvious but as a first step why don't you put her back in her own bed after the first night feed. Then at least you'd get a bit more sleep in your own space.....and if you're not sleeping next to her she might not smell milk at 5am and fancy some more food. It's what we did with ds and it helped him get down to one feed a night - bit more sleep, tad more sanity but I'll take whatever's on offer currently.
Hope it improves.

Welshmum, because despite appearing to be asleep she invariably wakes up and howls like a banshee! If I wait for her to be deeply, deeply asleep then I'm sleeping by then (albeit fitfully) and I'm terrified that she will wake up.
We are going with dh cuddling her when she wakes and I'm going to sleep elsewhere so she gets used to not being fed in the small hours.
Wish us luck!

Bloody hell don't I just. I think I know exactly how you feel. I went through the same thing with ds - got, like you, to the point when I really resented him waking up to be fed so often and was very snappy with dd too.
I'm considering the end of night feeding too as I know I'll be a better all round mother if I can knock it on the head, the whole process is ridden with guilt though, I can hear the sound of the 'I'm a crap mummy' horses hooves riding over the hill and into my brain

Moondog, yes, sorry, should have said 'night weaning'. We are talking about the same thing. And thank you for your very courteous acceptance of my dissenting voice

Aloha, I do wish you luck. We all need to do what works for us.

No Welshmummy - those are my horses! (horses? what are we talking about? )
Been feeling guilty all day just for feeling cross with dd (and muttering 'oh fXXking shut up you brat .) All while she wasn't even in the same room, I hasten to add.
And I know ds was an even cheerier soul once he started getting a solid night's sleep.

Aloha,if it lessens the drumming of aforementioned hooves any,I quite often eff.
In front of my children too.

(Not that I'm proud of it..)