I really don't want to breastfeed at night anymore (ds 11mo)

[Maveta]

I was wondering if anyone has some words of advice.. I don't really want to stop breastfeeding yet, in 2 weeks I go from working 3 days a week to full time 5 days 9am-5pm and ds starts nursery (he'll be a couple of weeks short of 1 year old).

I'd like to carry on feeding through this transition although I do see it naturally tailing off slowly after that. In theory I am happy to keep up the morning and bedtime feeds for quite a while but from now I'd really like to tail off the middle of the night feeds.

I'm tired, he wakes normally once a night, could be twice (unless he's not well when it could be a gazillion) and will not settle until I bung a boob in his mouth. I can't keep this up and work, I need dh to be able to share the night waking and well, I just want it to stop.

How do I do this?? That sounds stupid but like last night, he woke at 10pm so I gave him a short feed and back into bed. He woke at 2am and I said to dh I'm not feeding him. I KNOW he doesn't need it. We took it in turns to cuddle him, soothe him, settle him back (asleep) in his cot, when he would awake and start crying again. This went on for 2 hours until I finally gave in and fed him. I even tried offering some water in case he was thirsty but although he drank a bit it didn't settle him.

I am reluctant to offer a dummy as he used to have one and stopped using it at approx 4 months of his own accord. Would it work though? Should we offer formula? He is 90 percentile for weight and 97 for height so he's a big lad but he eats well in the day and I don't believe he really NEEDS to be feeding at night.

Any advice?? PLEASE?? I told a desperate dh this morning that you lovely ladies would have advice for us...

(I want to stress I am NOT trying to get him to sleep through the night, I know that he might wake in the night for ages, I just don't want to breastfeed him and don't know how to go about this change)

sorry that was so long....

i think your dh is going to have to take over the settling. you've got easter to crack it.

you could try a dummy, ds managed to get into them aged 24m (pinched from cm's child) so older babies will still take to them. but it is just one more thing to deal with in the future.

my rule is no bf after bedtime and before 6.20am. ds is nearly 3 so can be told, but if you have a cut off time in your head it is easier to stick to.

Maveta sorry I doon't really understand why you are happy for him to wake but not to feed? Do you not find that if he does wake a feed is the least stressful way to get him back to sleep? Or is it just so your DH can do his share of settling? (Sorry, I don't mean "just", I realise that's quite a big help)
Could understand if you were saying I don't want him to wake in the night (don't we all ) but not really sure why you think him waking but not feeding will be better?

Aww Maveta, that must be tricky. I don't have much advice as both of mine have generally been good sleepers but looking at it from outside, it seems to me that the problem is that he doesn't know how to settle himself off to sleep without feeding, so you need to give him something else which will give him sleep cues. Do you always feed him to sleep at bedtime? If so, is there any way you could cut that out by feeding him a little earlier and putting him down awake with whatever you decide to introduce? Could be a dummy, or a muslin, or a special cuddly toy, or some sleepy music. If I were you, I'd try introducing something like that at bedtime, and then after a while (maybe in a week's time, or over the Easter weekend), agree with DH that you're going to do 3 nights where you don't feed him before say 6am and every time he wakes, one of you will go in and give the comforter thingy to him / do the sleep cues routine?

he's doing it for comfort, not because he's hungry. i had this until about 11 months and finally i persuaded dh to cuddle dd back to sleep without me feeding. took about 3 nights and we had good nights after that. it's much harder if you do it, because your milk is right there. he doesn't expect anything from your dh.

SPB - well yeah, ideally I'd love it if he didn't wake in the night at all. But that seems to be something completely outwith our control so while accepting it is going to happen, I am tired of being the only one who gets up and settles him. I guess maybe I also think that if he stops getting fed when he wakes up, he might slowly realise there is little point waking up? Or is that wishful thinking?

I don't know, that's part of the question I guess, is it worth trying to stop this feed? Will it make a difference?

oops, he's awake.. back later

Both my ds's were like this (3.1 and 11 months). I wanted to stop bf at 12 months but they were both still waking in the night once or twice for a feed. I cut it down gradually. First, by setting a time before which I wouldn't feed eg 2am. If they woke before then, I would pick them up and cuddle them, then lay them back in their cot and say 'sshhh' and pat their tummy's until they went to sleep. Once they had got used to getting fed once a night say at 3am, I then cut this out. I would give water, then follow the same process. My 11 month old now sleeps from 7pm until about 5 - 6am when he wakes up and gets a feed. That is miles better than about 6 weeks ago when he woke up once to twice a night every night.
The first few nights were hard, and some nights were better than others. But it is worth it for me! My ds is good at settling himself to sleep for his naps in the day and does not rely on bf to get him to sleep so that might have made things easier. Hope not too long, and that it helps!

yes, iswym
so eventually he won't associate going to sleep with feeding
amazingly I have no advice (and you'd laugh if i did)
someone did link to a good article the other day, not sure if it'll be any use in this situation, off to search
I might have to try harder to get T to associate something with going to sleep (other than boob that is )

here it is
it's aimed at co sleeping but I think the ideas sounded really good anyway - if you do it let me know how it goes!

Mav, we went through this with T about a month ago. The night waking was all too much with going back to work. Anyway, I read something about the milk-sleep association thing. I was letting T fall asleep on my boob all the time. And basically I stopped that in the day by not letting him fall asleep on me and putting a story into his bedtime routine between milk and cot.

And at the same time made him have better naps in the day and the nights naturally sorted themselves after 3-5 days. I really have found that the whole sleep breeds sleep thing to be true and if he sleeps well in the day he sleeps better at night. So I went from letting him sleep when he wanted and after milk, to deciding he looks tired for a nap, giving him some milk, but keeping him awake (or giving it 1/2 hr or so before I am thinking of putting him down) then a story then cot. Cue lots of tears, but I did a gradual withdrawal thing, cuddling, then patting then just being in the room, then just down and escape! Still had (have ) tears for a bit but not all the time and he goes down fine if he's happy.

We tried the whole daddy to settle in the night but T was just getting hysterical. He will go through now 7-6/7am (shhh, don't tell SPB ). But if he wakes I do feed him. We decided we were all too tired and stressed in the middle of the night to try and do any change of routine. But we really did find that changing the day stuff and getting the naps has sorted the nights.

I have a rl bf'ing friend who did all this too and it worked for her.

Now I am expecting you to tell me he never falls asleep on the boob and has brilliant daytime naps

If this is a real deal breaker for you, let DH get up in the night with a bottle of cows milk - if DS is hungry then he'll drink the bottle, and if he's not then he'll get the point that its not worth it. This might cause crying, but if DH trys to cuddle him to sleep or whatever it should work.

Don't go yourself as its unfair to DS to be there with the norks that you have always let him have, not letting him iyswim - much better from Daddy.

This said, DS did have a night feed till nearly 18 months, when I was away for a week and he decided that he couldn't be bothered to wake up for DH and EBM - before that he would neck a bottle.

The No Cry Sleep Solution has loads of good advice.

Thanks for the replies.. I definitely think we've created the problem.. I let him use the boob to fall asleep both for daytime naps and bedtime and my mum and dh rock him to sleep in their arms.

So I think that is obviously the first thing we have to change - help him learn to fall asleep alone. Except our first trial of this started 25 mins ago and he is still crying and refusing to nap although I know he is tired and needs to sleep. Dh has popped back in to ssh pat (and I hear singing) but we don't know what we are doing. Are we leaving him? Are we popping in to reassure? When do we give up and accept he isn't going to sleep?

Aaaaaargh!

Maveta
We are exactly the same

I've just read through your replies again, I am so tempted to give him a dummy just so he has something to soothe him but feel like I really should resist that.

Dh has finally got him to sleep.. now the next hurdle will be tonight.. I am dreading it as dh definitely has the edge on me re. ssh-patting to sleep (and he won't be here). Have decided to leave the night feed/s as they are for now until we've got him regularly sleeping by himself and then we'll look at cutting them out. I like the idea of feeding half an hour before bed and then maybe doing stories on my lap and then into bed (the reverse of what I've done til now). He does have a couple of stuffed toys but has never really formed an attachment to anything in particular but I'll try offering him various things and see if he takes any of them, maybe.

The hardest bit will be getting my mum to agree not to rock him to sleep when she has him (does this matter do you think? She has him 3 times a week or does it only matter what we do at home?)

that post took me ages to type! x-post with you spb.. isn't it terrible? 2 indecisive people together does not make the best parenting combo at times like these

You can night wean him and continue to bf successfully. find dr Jay Gordons page on night weaning- can't do links sorry.
Some mums on yahoo's attachment parenting multiples group are doing it v successfully. My twins are 8 months so will give them a bit longer!

I found that page breadandroses, thank you! It looks like exactly what we need.. will definitely be giving it a shot.. SPB in case you are interested it is here

Maveta, I came to the same decision with DD2 at about the same age - DP got up for a few nights in a row and cuddled/settled her back to sleep and after a week she was going through. She does still have the occasional poorly night and I can bfeed her then without her falling back into old habits. Generally though i just do morning and bedtime feeds -she is 2 next week - where did the time go??????

Also, you mentioned formula but you can just give him cow's milk now no probs.

Good luck!

I didn't do shh pat as it really annoys DS - at bedtime we do into cot, then story, then I lie him down. At first I held his hand through the bars, and cuddled him if he cried, then after a bit he didn't cry but stood up, and so I just laid him down (and kept saying Sleepy night nights). Then slowly I stopped holding his hand, and night after night moved out of the room, laying him down if he got up. It took about 3 weeks to get him to go to sleep on his own without me in the room.

Don't try and change everything at once - if DH rocks him to sleep, then try putting him down when he's not quite asleep, then when half asleep and so on, giving him time to get used to his new reality.

Just wanted to say I don't think you've "created the problem". I think you've done brilliantly night feeding but it's no longer working for you all. We night weaned DS1 at 12 mths, as others have said, using Daddy in the middle of the night but still BF'ing to sleep initially. It took one week (I was pregnant and night feeds in particular were driving me crazy) and we did it over a holiday so being tired was not too bad.

DS1 now 2.2 and still wakes two or three times a night but settles with cuddles from either me or DP. My rule is BF when it's light, difficult concept at first but it soon sinks in. Such a relief when it does.
Good luck. x

Have you tried giving him your T shirt? A worn one that smells of you and smells of milk. That's what T has adopted as his thing and now I can't have it back

Only read the OP.

How do you get him to sleep at night? Do you feed him to sleep?

When my DS was 9 months I decided I needed to stop him being so reliant on BF for sleep. I found 'No cry sleep solution' very helpful. The upshot was that I can now put him in his cot awake and after a little time shushing and stroking his back he falls asleep on his own.

As a result of these changes to bedtime, if he wakes in the night I can get him back to sleep the same way.

Just to add - daytime napping was the last thing to improve! I sussed bedtime first, then night time, we're just getting onto naps now (he's 10 months)

Another thing you could do, is get dh to bring him to you, and feed him lying down in bed. That is not night-time weaning, but the next best thing.

Good luck Maveta!

I will be trying it too soon!