15 month old baby breast feeding about 8 - 10 times through night!

[mamaLou13]

Hi everyone. I was hoping for abit of advice (any would be welcomed) My daughter is 15 months old and she sleeps in with us still. (we have tried her in her cot but she won't sleep there s we are going to try her in a matress on the floor in her new room soon montessori style- hopefully that will work) but more to the point, she seems to wake at least 7 times every night and although i love breastfeeding and am not ready to give up totaly i would like to limit it to a feed after she comes home from nursery and one before bed. also im not sure that she will ever give up without a battle but i don't want to rush her i would like to think that she will wean herself off in time but at this rate she will still be feeding at 11!! . Any advice or experience you've had would be great.

A mother at a mother and baby group I used to go to told me she had been to a baby sleep clinic for the same thing, and their advice (which she said worked) was to rub your nipples with cut open cloves of garlic before bed.... so they learn that breastfeeding at night..... not so nice any more. Might be worth trying.

Never heard of that advice before Thunder, am a bit at that one. Was is an NHS sleep clinic?

mama yes I have got experience and yes it does end .

Think the first thing you need to do is order yourself a copy of this book and while you are waiting for it have a read of this article.

I tried to concentrate on making the nights work for us before we tackled making the days easier for me.

Hope that whatever you choose to do works for you too.

I have an 18 mo still waking a couple of times a night. That article is fantastic thanks, the bit at the end sums up my feelings very well. We have got the night wakings down to a level where I can function the next day, so I m happy to go with it. Cuddles and snuggly feeds in the small hours will be a thing of the past all too soon. :(

But the extra sleeep would be a bonus

And for us, the amount of night feeds did just naturally reduce over time. I posted a thread very similar to yours about 5 months ago op, it does get easier.

Honest

if its any help DD went from being like this to sleeping 12 hours by 22 months and apparently 25% of preschoolers still wake at night so she was one of the good ones!

ahh thanks. I do hope it gets better but its difficult really because i will definatley miss it when it ends but thats the way it goes isn't it. Thank yu for the reassurance.

How did you get on last night, was it any better?

Are you sure she's waking to feed and not just waking up, not knowing how to self-settle and so you feed her?

It would be odd for a baby who was being fed well during the day to wake up genuinely hungry that many times during the night at that age. She almost seems to have swapped day for night (in the style of a newborn) and then is snacking during the night, never taking enough at a feed to fill her up.

I know all babes are different, but I have a (big - 98th centile) 15 month old who is still partially breastfed and I can't imagine her needing to feed that often during the night. Yes, night-time snuggles are nice, but so is sleep - it's essential for both of you.

Can you try other methods when she wakes - cuddles and reassurance, shh pat, etc, etc, whatever works.Ttyst way she might realise that it's not really worth waking up so often. Surely even two or three wakes would be a compromise - still having the night-time cuddles, but actually getting some sleep and being able to function as well.

yes thats exactly why she wakes its nothing to do with being hungry at all she just doesn't know how to get herself back to sleep and ive tried the cuddles etc but she just goes absoloutly bazzurk so i eventuall feed her anyway because she will kick off for an hour at a time before i give in just to get abit of sleep!

If you think it may be a self settling issue, Elizabeth pantley may be good for you. I used to pantley pull off method to break my dd's habit of sucking to sleep and it really helped. My dd was 9 months though. The book is called no cry sleep solutions. There is a toddler version too.

The thing is if she is away from you at nursery she may be doing what's known as 'reverse cycling' (i.e. feeding at night when she is with you as she isn't able to feed during the day).

Has your DD just recently started doing the frequent night waking? Does it coincide with teething, developmental leap, illness, upset in normal routine?

Oh, and she won't be bfing at 11 even if you do nothing to encourage weaning. As a child's mouth changes shape to allow for adult teeth, they lose the ability to latch (they may however decide they don't want to nurse before that point of no return though from an emotional/developmental standing though)

There is a developmental leap at around 15 months - in the run up to the 65 week developmental leap, IIRC. It usually leads to more night waking but calms down again. There are other leaps at 17 m.o. (76 weeks I think) and a big sleep regression at 18 months (well, 18-21 months really) which have the same effect.

My co-sleeping 22 m.o. doesn't bf to sleep any more - he still wakes and needs to be rocked back to sleep after he's bf'd (only once or twice a night, thankfully). I really long for the days when a quick bf in bed would settle him back again. Getting him back to sleep via a different means has had no effect on the number of wakings.

The No-Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers & Preschoolers which haverina mentions is good IMO.

7 times a night sounds exactly like waking at the end of every sleep cycle and wanting the help of bf to go back off again. As TruthSweet says, reverse cycling may be part of it.

DS has always fed a lot at night, but his feeds have gradually reduced over time. At 13 m.o. he woke 3-5 times a night, but by 17 m.o. he woke 0-1 times a night. That increased again once he started cutting molars, but is calming down again now. I've not done anything to encourage that.