Breastfeeding Help

[Therealhelenskelton]

Hi Everyone, new here and struggling a bit. Solely Bf little girl is almost 10 months old. She will only take breast, sometimes will have a sip of bm from a cup at nursery.

I love our journey and I love feeding her, however I need to return to work soon and will work days and nights.

She will go in her cot for an hour after feeding her to sleep but then she is constantly up and having to be fed back to sleep. By 10pm she is normally in bed with be safe co sleeping for the rest of the evening. However she will not sleep unless she is latched.

I'm a single mum of 4 and don't quite know what to do. I have no one to help (father no contact at present) she goes to nursery to try and get that time away just a few hours (difficult divorce) so I can clean etc (I know this sounds ridiculous but she is velcro baby)

I am now utterly exhausted and actually wondering if I should stop feeding her as it isn't fair on her? I can't leave her really so I feel a bit suffocated sometimes but mainly I'm worried about her and how it's going to be for her when I go back to work.

I'm not sure of the point of the post but just wondering if anyone had any wisdom for me- I'm considering going to bed soon as I am sooooo tired.

Are you ok with sleep training her to dissociate her from falling asleep at the boob? Worked wonders for us. Last feed should be before she falls asleep, put her to sleep drowsy but awake so that she learns to sleep on her own. If she wakes in the night, use a patting/shushing technique until you think she is genuinely hungry (should be at least 5/6 hours if she is on meals).

You can check in increments of 3/6/9 minutes or 5/10/15 or 12/12 if you don't mind a bit of crying.

We worked with a sleep consultant and I didn't believe the technique would work, but it did with both of our kids, who were awful sleepers!

Anyone?

I would start trying to get her to settle by other means overnight. If you look up 'habit stacking' by Lyndsey Hookway this is a good way of doing so more gently. Essentially you introduce a new sleep association whilst feeding eg singing, back rubbing. And then in time you can move to having it in place of breastfeeding back to sleep. As you're returning to work soon I would start working on this process immediately.

I would caution that under 12 months babies can still wake in the night genuinely hungry so it would be sensible to also offer EBM or formula if she won't settle another way. You could try this with a cup rather than a bottle at her age.

Thank you so much

It’s exhausting and amazing in equal measure, to meet your DDs needs in this way. Well done! A habit you could try to introduce is unlatching before she and you fall back to sleep when cosleeping and feeding. I think I used to put my finger in my DD’s mouth when I was ready to unlatch her after a feed. Just a bit of extra space can help to get less disturbed sleep. Personally I wasn’t in to sleep training with cry-it-out but gentle tweaks helped me. Good luck 💐