13mth old, thrush, sleep, nightweaning - emotional, sorry!

[Trillian42]

DD is 13 months old & has just been diagnosed with thrush. I also have it, but thought my cracked nipples were just due to her jumping around while feeding at first, and obviously it's very painful to feed.

DD is only BFing at night - last feed in the evening, and then from 3-6 times nightly. I tried BFing her during the day more in case it was reverse cycling, but it doesn't seem to make any difference.

Should I just finish BF altogether??? I was planning on night weaning anyway, and just going to one BF before bed and one at wake up, but I've been too exhausted to handle the hysterics that arise if she doesn't get fed. My mum has offered to take her for a night to give me a rest. I basically can't handle hearing her screaming if DH tries to settle her (with a bottle, we're not starving her!) and always cave after 15 mins (or less, I'm very soft ). She has no interest in a bottle during the night and cries harder if one appears.

She's had 13.5 months of having things her own way and she's a great baby, but I've had 13.5 months of next to no sleep & my brain is fried. I'm trying to set up my own business at the moment due to redundancy so I need to be alert for the few bits of work I have on.

DH has been terrifically supportive of BF and isn't bothered at all by me continuing to feed her indefinitely, but I don't really want to be feeding her still past 18 months. I know a lot of people here think that 13.5 months isn't very long, but I'm very glad to have made it to the 6mth mark!

DH won't give an opinion on it today - he says it's completely my decision and that he's happy either way, but I need some one to advise and any real life people I know finished BF at 6mths. One, a doctor, was shocked that I was still BFing at 8mths

Please, please give me some advice :(

No advice but my sympathies. I have a night feeding dd2 who is 2.7 now.

I felt the same as you. I couldn't listen to her being so upset at night when I knew a 2 minute feed would settle her. Its a viscious circle. You feed her at night so you are too tired to stop feeding her at night.

I've had the shock from others about it too. I went to see my HV when dd was 18 months as i was looking for advice on stopping feeding. The HV was useless as she had no experience with feeding for that long. (I'm in Ireland, bf rates were very low but improving slightly)

I've made a few friends at toddler group who breastfed but none of my close friends did. It can be isolating.

I think only you can decide if you want to stop. It sounds to me like you do - so do I to be honest but just can't seem to find a way to do it.

suiledonne I've a feeling that's the road I'll end up going down too, feeding DD at night until she 's a teenager self weans but it's not really what I want. I like the bedtime feed for the closeness, but during the night it's not so good! I'm also in Ireland by the way - almost all friends did BF but only to a max of 6 months. I don't have many friends with kids though, so not a very accurate sample.

I should also mention that I talked to my local La Leche League, but they were quite pushy about formula being terrible, and although DD was EBF until 8/9mths, she does take formula now during the day, and I don't have a problem with that at all.

Oh, and thank you for the reply!

I know what you mean! My sister said to me the other day 'You don't still want to be breastfeeding her at 3' and my reply was that I don't really want to be feeding her now Sometimes I really resent it but most of the time I see how much she loves it and we are really close and then I don't begrudge one second of the time I've spent breastfeeding.

It's become such an emotional thing for dd2 now. She tells me she loves boobs and the milk is yummy and tastes like sugar. I think because she can verbalise it it makes it very difficult for me to take away something she loves.

If I had my time over again I would have weaned when she lost a bit of interest at about 10 months but I was reluctant to and then she suddenly got a lot more enthusiatic after she started walking at 13 months.

I found La Leche League very helpful in ways to cope with extended bf but no real advice on how to stop at all and that was what I contacted them about. I am too far from meeting to go but spoke to a lovely lady on the phone.

I'm being no help to you, am I? All this is leading up to me saying that if weaning is what you truly want then go for it! You can overthink it, which is what I did and end up going round in circles for months. Best to trust your instinct I think.

13 month is fantastic - especially here when breastfeeding is still not 'mainstream'. Well done.

I would treat the thrush first, and then consider what you want to do.

Whether you stop breastfeeding entirely, or just at night, there will be crying - so I guess it depends on what you would rather do, not feed at all or just feed morning and night? Feeding all night sounds exhausting and I wouldn't be able to keep it up - how about tackling that first and then considering if you want to continue any longer?

I'd wait till after the 55 week developmental spurt is over before night weaning, as it can lead to more night waking. (You may be past it already, but if your DD was born early, she will hit it late as it's roughly 55 weeks after their due date.)

DS was feeding 3-5 times a night before the spurt (and had been since 8 months) but spontaneously cut it down to just one after the spurt. I count myself lucky.

Whatever you decide to do, you've done a great job. :)

Thank you all for the advice. I've decided to not think about anything until the thrush clears up - it was the worry that I'd be re-infecting DD that was pushing the weaning to the fore. I got to the GP today for myself so hoping the pain will ease soon!

I suspect finishing the night feeds may be coming up soon, but I've a big deadline in a week so won't worry about it until after that.

Do you know, every time after I have a minor meltdown, I realise that I've only one DC & that other women manage with several more and I wonder how on earth you/they all do it! This whole work/mother thing is really, really difficult.