Comfort feeding at night

[Gep1988]

I'm hoping someone can give me advice please.

I have been breast feeding my son and he is now 5 months old, I feel I am ready to stop however in the day we seem to have cracked it, he will now take a bottle quite happily but..... he uses me for comfort at night to help him sleep, in the day it's fine as we are normally out and I can rock him to sleep in his pram after a bottle. Between the age of a few weeks up to about 4 months he slept through the night however now wakes every 3 hours and wants me for comfort he doesn't have a dummy and if possible want to swerve him having one but I am at a loss of what to do to comfort him. I can't bear hearing him cry and normally give in and give him my breast but obviously this can't go on, can anyone give me some advice on another way to comfort him to sleep.

Thanks

Have you got a DP/DH and are they trying to settle him?

Google gentle controlled crying and see if there is a plan you can work with. You arent going to make the transition with no crying as that is how he is going to communicate that he wants to comfort suck. You need to switch him from doing this on your boob to his thumb or a comfort item

You need to switch him from doing this on your boob to his thumb or a comfort item

Agree but personally I wouldn't encourage thumb sucking. You want something that you can take away at a later stage. Thumb sucking can damage teeth and mouth development and it can be veery hard to get a child to stop.

Unfortunately his daddy works late at night so is not here for bedtime, he has a cuddly bunny which he will snuggle up to and chew on his ear but obviously it's not the same thing, I will look into controlled crying though, thank you so much

Could you wait until DH is home for a few night to crack it?

A 5 month old either needs breast milk or formula over night. Just because he was able to sleep through doesn’t mean he can now. There is a massive sleep regression at this point.

Unfortunately he isn't always indoors and also my little boy is shattered by 9 o clock he will go to sleep when I give him my boob but will fight it otherwise and become upset

Some 5 months old do not need to feed overnight. It depends on the child and how much they take in during the day