How can I dry up my milk fast! Urgent

[lucasma]

I heard that if you take some kind of cold/flu tablet they dry up your milk? Is it true? How long would it take?

Am desperate to night wean DS (13 months) Dh cant/wont help.

We tried before when he was 11 months and for 3 weeks he cried every night for 2+ hours. HV and everyone I spoke to said it would take a week and to give him water and comfort him, but it didnt. They said he would sleep through but he has never.
:(

DH refused to help anymore so it was left to me so I started feeding again, I was so tired to try and put up with his crying. Nothing else would comfort him His feeds are going up again now, last night he woke for 3 feeds each lasting nearly an hour, I cant do it anymore. The reason why why tried night weaning the first time round was becasue he was feeding around 5 times a night and was awake for 2-3hours during that time, I was so tired. Cant co-sleep as he would crawl/fall out of bed.

DS eats well in the day and very rarely asks for bf during the day. During the day he only really has a bedtime feed and the odd feed before naps. He is always put down awake and can self sooth. This is why I know it is all a bf problem.

Please help am so tired and and its affecting how I look after DS, cant be a good mother to him like this :(

Poor you

Firstly, I'm sorry but why is this all on you to solve? Your DH is DS father and he should be equally capable of sharing the get ups to sooth etc. he can't just "give up" or refuse, that option isn't there when becoming a parent. Have you sat down and discussed how stressful the whole situation it and how you need him to help and support in any way?

As for dropping milk supply, I'm not sure. I hear sage can affect milk supply (fresh herb or supplement).

Have you sussed his day naps out? Can you offer more milk during the day?

I have argument in my head on a regular basis about night feeding.

One side says: dd wouldn't wake if not hungry/thirsty, it's a comfort & she's still a baby (11.5 months), milk at night has sleepy hormones so instant fix, at least 2 proper feeds so must be hungry

T'other side says: she's nearly a year and eating great, she's not hungry and wants comfort therefore comfort could be a cuddle from mum or dad, up to 5 'wake ups' a night sometimes is poor with twice feeding back to sleep.

It's so hard deciding what's best. I know I've woke at 2am for a drink and downed a pint of water

I can recommend No cry sleep solution. There's a pull off method in there you could try to wean him at night. I plan on using when I'm ready to wean dd...

Good luck with night weaning, hope more
Advice comes along

No advice but wanted to bump for you as I have similar problems.

Well I think you've already proved that he still does need a night feed. He can self Seattle a well so that's not the problem.

I've meet many Babus who still need night feeds at this age, some of them formula feed to. 12 is a long time to expect anyone to go without fluids, I don't think you'll find many adults who do.

Have you tried a dream feed? I do are that your DH either should be part of the solution or allow you to do anything that helps you get more sleep. If you can get him to help then try a dream feed, 10 or 11pm then get him to do wake up's until an aged time in the early hours. To try and reduce feeding during the night.

Another option is to try Co sleeping. It can be done with an older baby. options to either side car his cot, remove one side and push it up to you side of the bed (you can google this for more detailed inductions)., if your beds big enough use a bed guard, you can get long ones. Or put the mattress on the floor.

Remember no feeding during the night doesn't always mean sleeping though you could night wean and then end up with a waking baby who you can't easily get back to sleep.

You also mentioned he doesn't take much milk during the day, have you tried increasing milk feeds in the day time. Our giving lots of high fast foods, as they need a lot of fat still at this age and if he doesn't get it in the day time it'll make him more likely to wake at night.

Have a read of Dr Sears night time parenting, it's a good book which explains why small children need night time parenting.

Dd had a feed at 10pm/11pm (bf and bottle) until 16mo or so. About 17mo she started sleeping through from 7-6 ish. Before that she was usually sleeping through from the late feed until 6ish. She has a lot of milk (formula or cow) in the day though - loads more than recommended, about 600ml including massive 200ml bottle before bed.

sudafed :)

I don't know about drying up milk (sounds like the sort of thing a decongestant would do, but you don't want to muck about unless you're sure - perhaps ring HV?), but the only thing that got mine going through the night was swapping places with DP so he was next to DS's bed (DS's bed is butted up against ours as the first step to stopping co-sleeping). That way when DS woke up he could shush him back down, rather than DS immediately seeing me and thinking of milk.

Sudafed or similar might dent your supply, it won't stop it ordinarily. The drugs that would are rarely prescribed due to their side effects.

:( so sorry your feeling like this, your milk is produced on supply and demand system, if you dont feed ds in the night it will stop being produced. I dont however think it is your milk suppy that is the problem. You are exhausted and dh isnt helping. would your dh help if you werent feeding? if not you are not changing the situation. I wouldnt take anything to dry up your milk it will slow on its own in a few days. do you think ds could be teething, poorly, having a growth spurt. I know none of these things help you be less tired but they are temporary so there could be a light at the end of the tunnel.

If your DC takes little milk in the day then of course he is going to want more at night do the first thing is to do is concentrate on more milk during the day. If you have made up your mind not to BF anymore then cows milk in a beaker/cup will be fine - I found from about 8 mths all of my DC became less interested in the boob as there were too many other distractions.

Once your DC is drinking plenty in the day waking at night should become less frequent, but if he continues offer water. I found that post 12 mths this method works pretty quickly.

Actually drying up your milk is not what is going to help you, encouraging your DC to sleep through will.

Sudafed, peppermint oil capsules, sage tea all might help a little
Best solution is well fitting bra on snug, night and day. Don't touch them at all. The milk should be gone in a week
My DS couldn't latch and I decided not to express so we FF from 2 days old. I tried everything when my milk came in I was so miserable but really think it is just time. My milk came on a Friday- that weekend was torture but by Wed it was ok. I leaked slightly for another week.
Xx

If you take something to dry your milk up you may well find it affects your overall supply. I took sage leaf capsules to try and dry up my milk a bit as had permanantly full engorged boobs. That spelled the end of breastfeeding for me. Your boobs will have no way of knowing that it's just night time milk you want to dry up. I'm sorry I don't know how you can night wean but just wanted to warn you before messing with your milk supply if you want to continue bf.

My DS is 16 months. We haven't fully night weaned but now do the following:
DH puts DS to bed at about 7pm. It took abut 10 days for this routine to settle into but sometimes DS is asleep before DH has finished dressing him.

DS normally wakes at about 10pm either DH soothes him back to sleep or if not I give him some milk.
10:30ish we go to bed. DS is on a mattress on the floor next to our bed. I sleep on the far side. DH sleeps closest to DS.

When DS wakes in the night DH pats him or cuddles him back to sleep if this doesn't work DS get's into bed with us and I feed him.

I know this isn't "proper" night weaning but we were feeding 6 or so times a night DS wasn't getting into bed until 10 as he cluster feed in the evenings.

Our new rhythm give DH and I a chance to have some evening time together. I now get a good 3 or 4 hours of actual solid sleep. All of us are happier as a family and individuals. We are about to enter into a period of massive change as a family so will adjust our rhythm when we have settled on the other side of that.

I found reading dr jay blog on night weaning really helpful.

Also can you talk to your OH about this again. Perhaps in the context of the fact you are so worried/confused/exhausted/stressed that are considering taking medication for purposes other then intended. Maybe by stating calming and factually how tough things are and the length you feel you need to go to will kick you OH into action to involve himself in the night parenting too. He might also benefit in the long run by having a more rested and happier wife!

It's such a difficult situation to be in. So I really do sympathise with you.

Thanks for replies.

I think there must be something wrong with my milk as it has never worked as a instant fix (ie sleepy hormones) not since he was a newborn.

That is why night time is so hard he wakes up and is wide awake and I have never been able to feed him back to sleep. He has so much energy. He wakes up and calls for me, shouts loudly/cries. Then I go to him and try and get him to go to sleep, sing, shh, pat. He gets angry and wants milk so I feed him and then he is happy but still wide awake, if I leave him though he gets upset again, sings, shouts cries so I need to stay with him, I usually just ignore him in the room or shh, sing pat etc and eventually he will go back to sleep after an hour or so, the longest time has been 2.5-3 hours.

When I wasnt feeding him he would get so angry!! I would try water and he would shout, cry, this would go on for a long time. I have heard other mothers say the baby eventually goes to sleep after 45 minutes or so after waking as they know they arent getting any milk, but he doesnt!

I have tried cosleeping he is constantly sitting, crawling, trying to stand and walk, he thinks it is a game, we could never sleep like that.

I am very sad about it as I always hoped to feed him to a year and to co-sleep with him, we had to stop cosleeping at 4 months when he learned to roll over as he kept rolling over everywhere.

I have tried offering feeds in the day, he wont in the morning at all. I have tried feeding in a dark room but he is not interested. In the afternoon he will but he doesnt feed for long. When he is tired before a nap he often has a good long feed, it doesnt make him go to sleep but I think it comforts him. He always has a good long bedtime feed and goes to sleep wide awake and happy, no crying, after 10 minutes or so.

He eats well and has gone up 20 percentiles in the last 3 months so I dont think he can be very hungry. Maybe it is thirst? He did used to drink the water when I gave it to him.

It has been good to vent here as I have been very stressed and sad about it all. :(

Oops I meant I wanted to feed him to 2 years!

I had a similar issue with 16mo old DS lucasma and solved it. Good news? It wasn't nearly as bad as I feared. Bad news? It involves your DH doing a lot of the leg work so he needs to be extremely supportive and prepared for that.

Just for context, until 16mo, DS fed about five times per night. He screamed till vomiting if it wasn't me who went to him in the night and if no feed was forthcoming. I was working full time and up most of the night and I felt ill.

So we did this. DS was in his own room (in a bed, not a cot as he also hated the cot). I breastfed him pre-sleep and at 11pm. Then after that, DH went in all night to him.

The first night, DS was furious. He screamed. He vomited. He was awake for five hours. DH took him to watch telly, they ate toast but he did not get me.

Night two, we did the same. This time, DS was awake for three hours but DH sung to him, cuddled him and he eventually slept. DS was upset but was never alone, always being cuddled and loved.

Nights three and four improved things and after a week, he was no longer furious to see his dad there. (By this time I had slept more than in the past 16mo and was so so overjoyed.)

Once this was working ok, I went out and missed the 11pm feed. DS didn't notice. For the first time, he was sleeping in more than 2-3 hour slots.

After that, we took some time off work, went on holiday and ran DS ragged so he was exhausted each night and then his dad put him to bed (singing and rocking him). He once asked "all gone?" but no tears.

I could not believe that DS was weaned and felt I had woken up from a long period of illness as a result. It did knacker out my DH for a while but then I was working full time and waking up five times a night so I didn't care!!!!

I loved breastfeeding and would have carried on if it hadn't been so intense at night even at 16mo. The good thing about this method was that my boobs hardly hurt as I cut down over a few weeks to nothing.

Good luck. I know how horrifically exhausting it is to feed or be up with a toddler all night. Hope you find a way that works soon.

lucasma - just a thought. It might not be hunger or milk but he might just be a very alert little boy who doesn't need much sleep. Until DS was about 18 mo, possibly older, we did everything under the sun to get him into a going to bed nicely at 7.30-8pm routine and we cracked it, but he would be awake at 2 - usually until 6ish - full of beans and as large as life - jabbering and chatting and generally exhausting me.

It got better when I read a very old (even then) baby book by Hugh Jolly that said some children, not many but a few, just don't need much sleep (and they tend to be the uber bright ones). At that point we gave in and he started staying up until about 10.30/11 when we went up. That way he slept until about 6.30/7 and our quality of life improved greatly. We were forcing him to do what his body didn't need and continued not to need and he's 17 now !!

He had a few little blips like the first couple of months of starting nursery when he was ready for bed at 7.30 and when he dropped his day time sleep at about 2.5 but fundamentally he never needed more than 7 to 8 hours sleep and paradoxically from five weeks old he slept from about 11 - 5 and that really was his core pattern but we just didn't realise at the time.

Good luck op - give going with the flow a try - they're not all made to have 11-12 hours.

Do you think it might be because he needs comfort and company, rather than milk? And BF, as we all know, is probably the easiest way for a little one to get both! 13 months is a classic time for separation anxiety, especially at night.

Is he sleeping in another room? If co-sleeping doesn't work for you, how about putting his cot right beside your bed? At least then he might start to feel a bit more secure - he will know that even if you're not giving him a BF, you're not going to go away and leave him alone in the dark either. And you won't have to get out of bed ...

Hope you can find a solution that works, you sound exhausted

ruby That sounded like a very stressful experience. It does reassure me though, knowing that DS's stamina is not that unusual. 5 hours awake! Your Dh must be very patient. Maybe I do need to give it some more time, 13 months is still quite little.

marriedinwhite that does ring a few bells. The only times he has 'slept through' has been when we have been out in the evening and instead of going to bed around 7pm, he had a nap during the evening and then came home and went to bed around 11pm. He slept through without waking at all until 6 or 7. This has happened about 3 times. Maybe I need to look at things with a new perspective instead of just going by how other babies are.

I have already changed his napping schudule. I cut his am nap to 45 minutes which has brought his pm nap earlier. I may cut both even further as maybe he is getting too much sleep. He has always had/needed less sleep than reccommended, I have tried so hard to get him to sleep the recommended average hours but maybe he doesnt actually need these amounts.

When he was very little (2-5 months I worked so hard everyday getting him to nap every 1.5-2 hours as recommended) as he seemed so alert and not sleepy. I always thought that was becasue he was overstimulated/overtired, but he was never very upset. I find I am doubting everything I have done now. I feel so unsure/inadequate about my mothering skills.

zoob that is very correct. I think the main reason he wakes is for company. That is why I never leave him alone. He is lonely and I think afraid of the dark, he improved a bit once we introduced a night light also.

Thank you this has given me a lot to think about.

I found the no cry sleep solution bby Elizabeth pantley very good.

You are a wonderful mother. First babies are for practicing on and I think it's harder now than 17 years ago because there is even more contradictory advice out there - at least then there was the blue book, the beige book, not sure if Penelope Lively was published, some kaftany stuff and some Stoppardy stuff - the HV's and MW's still talked a lot of rot though.

Thank you marriedinwhite that has made me cry, I only wish that he grows up well.

There is so much information and people are full of suggestions. When suggestions dont work it is very difficult not to become disheartened. I didnt realise babies were so complicated.

He'll be fine. My little darling kept me awake until 2am this morning until he stumbled in slightly worse for wear.