12 month old gone breastfeeding mad

[Boobymonster]

My nearly 12 month old son started nursery recently, and I’ve gone back to work. He caught a virus in his first week and since then has become breastfeeding obsessed.

We were down to 4 feeds a day (first thing, nap 1, nap 2, bed time) before I went back to work and it was working so well. Now I feel like I can’t have any physical space from him when I’m with him as he just asks for milk all the time and screams/cries if he doesn’t get it. He takes milk in a bottle from dad/nursery/grandparents but not a lot (I don’t think the amount he has ‘replaces’ the breastfeeds) so I’m guessing he’s making up for it when he’s around me.

What’s prompted this post is that he was up for 3 hours last night crying on and off and going on and off the boob. His dad couldn’t comfort him but he also wouldn’t be comforted by me either unless he was breastfeeding, and the feeds weren’t sending him to sleep like they would normally. He’s done split nights in the past but not where he was this upset the whole time.

Is this a grin and bear it situation where he will calm down eventually? Or can we do anything to help him? I’m so so touched out, and feel sad as I was so keen to carry on breastfeeding when going back to work as it was working like a dream, and now I feel resentful and overwhelmed.

It's probably a mixture of being under the weather with nursery germs and also a touch of separation anxiety due to not seeing you in the daytime. This happens with a lot of babies. If you continue to feed on demand it should naturally calm down. Breastfeeding will really help your baby get over the nursery illnesses more quickly than he would otherwise so at least there's that silver lining! It does sound tough but hopefully just a temporary phase while he adjusts to his new routine. He's also probably reverse cycling a bit. Getting lots of calories in the daytime may help.

Oh also he could be teething as well? My baby feeds constantly at night when teething despite barely waking up when not teething. It usually goes on for a couple of weeks.

It'd all of the above plus there's a 12 month sleep regression and growth spurt to contend with as well. It's never ending.

Mine is off the boob, started nursery as well as me being back to work and the night wake ups have started again. Ranging from 1 -3 x and sometimes for a couple of hours. I tend not to give him a bottle night, few sips of water. They don't need nightdress at this age and I don't want to start any bad habits.

Maybe try keeping a sippy cup of water close to hand and seeing if that works?

I could have written this post myself.
My daughter is 15 months. We were down to 4 naps before she went to nursery at 13 months, and now she is begging for milk all of her waking hours. She signs for it and fights to get under my clothes.

She's also become overwhelmingly clingy with me. She screams if I put her down or hand her to someone else. I can't dress myself, prepare food or go to the loo without her screaming. It's really hard to cope with and I feel so touched-out all the time.

My son was the same at this age, and I remember feeling like I wanted to wean him to reclaim my body, but, like yours and my daughter, my milk is the main source of liquid so I persevered. The difference was that he was this age during that hot lockdown summer. I had nowhere else to be, nothing else to do, and no other children to attend to. My husband was at home to around more to pick up cooking etc...

It does pass. I can't remember when it did for my son but I fed him until he was 2.5 and I am fairly certain the last year was a welcome return to the regular feeding schedule and none of the desperate begging!

Grin and bear. They make up for the time you didn't feed them when you are reunited and it will increase due to him being under the weather.

I fedDD until she was 3, at around the year and 2.5 year mark she returned to almost newborn frequency and then completely calmed down to barely feeding at all and it aligned with her molars coming in. It takes a couple of months to come in properly a bit like wisdom teeth so if you want to continue BF just hold on.

As another motivation DD also avoided hospital admission at 2year as she was still breastfeeding after a horrendous case of norovirus which lasted a week. GP would have admitted her if it wasn't for the fact BM is so easy to digest that she was still producing wet nappies despite not keeping much of anything down.

Thanks everyone for the advice. I mostly just need to know this will pass 🙈 I have loved breastfeeding, and I know the adage of ‘don’t quit on a bad day’!

Part of carrying on past mat leave has been to help with the inevitable illness, so it’s good to hear that it’s really worth it for that. Im just struggling with my own body autonomy and sleep in the mean time!