Extended bf - started night weaning last night, feel dreadful, buck me up?

[phdlife]

Ds is 17m and while I can live with the good nights where he only wants one feed, two is more usual, 3 not uncommon, and when he's teething he just sees me as a giant dummy - and old enough now to start being very cranky indeed if I attempt to stop him chewing/pulling/sucking all frelling night.
With the result that, last week, I ended up with inflamed, permanently tender nips, and resolved to have a go night weaning. (AIBU?)

So we read the Jay Gordon thing and resolved to cuddle ds but not feed him, to start with, between 4 and 6 am. (He usually feeds sometime between 6 and waking at 7.)

Well, he sobbed his little heart out. Utterly devastated. For half an hour solid, then at intervals until it was getting light and finally, feeling like the Worst Mother in the Universe, I let him have a 2-minute suck and he fell straight back to sleep. He then slept - without any more feeds - til 8:45.

So now I feel terrible because I gave in which I guess probably confused him, I'm going to have to do it again (and again and again), and after one night I'm so tired I'm starting to think that hell, 3 feeds a night isn't so bad!

How long before he might get the message? Will he regress soon as the next two molars start hurting? How do you know if you're doing the right thing?

I was thinking WOW she's got strong PFs if she can do 15 mins! Maybe the 15 mins should combine them too. Every full stop = long PF contraction; commas = the quick ones!

By the way, DD's great at falling asleep off the boob now (and I mustn't forget how huge that is) but has been waking LOADS so I think we might have to go the whole nightweaning hog sooner than i thought, even though we're not even at home at the mo.

I can do a bunch of the quick ones, but I only remember once a day. and I only just found out about the long ones!

ooh, not at hone - are you somewhere interesting? [nosy]

nowhere interesting - mil in hosp so away to be near her.

pfm meanwhile left dormant

and 15 mins not materialised as yet but feeling really fired up so... [fingers crossed emoticon]

as for dd's sleep, just don't have the energy at the mo and if anything have taken a step or two back - there's been a few nights recently i've just let her suck away. and her boob addiction in the day is getting silly. about to start another thread on that...

oh dear, good luck

last night was ds's 2nd time of sleeping through [happy]. I got very determined he wouldn't use me as a dummy, I was just unbearably sore all day/night - it seems to have had effect of cutting down his feeds enormously - including feeds I was still happy to do. oh well!

sorry about your Mil, doesn't sound good.

Wow, phd that sounds like a massive leap of progress - how did you do it? and (I'm using the shock smiley to mean TIRED - why isn't there a tired one on Mumsnet?!)

ps phd are you doing your 15 minutes now? if so, again. i've got to go and tackle the kitchen...

lol, there really should be a tired emoticon - good idea!

ok first of all, I'm pretty sure he only slept through last night because he was so damn tired - we were staying at a friend's and ds was so excited, he cavorted for a good 1.5hrs after bedtime. So don't be about that!!

as for the comfort thing - we had a different scenario to you - ds wasn't doing it anything like that often, and he wanted to stay on for longer. But when he comfort sucks he does a terrible latch that was agony for me. This enabled me to become a bit [grr] about it - if he won't latch properly I'll let him try twice more, if he still won't (and sometimes he gives up himself at this point) then I put it away. Cue lots of tears and me feeling bad, but I just couldn't let him keep hurting me.

Alternatively, if he got on and then just didn't suck - or sucked and wasn't swallowing - I'd pop him off. Ditto tears, guilt, etc.

I felt horrid in case he either was hungry, or really felt he needed me - after all I didn't really want to quit altogether - but the pain meant I just had to do it. I was getting resentful of all his feeds and that was worse than thinking I might've deprived him of some, iyswim.

and yep was just about to start my 15 minutes. did you see my other thread about it?

Well, well done i'm really pleased you're getting a bit of rest (and your nips too.) I reckon dd is only a couple of days away from being sorted, it's just down to me to summon the energy to finish the jay gordon thing. will do soon...

and no, where's your other 15 mins thread?

CW thread here

haven't actually started yet tonight

i have just stopped giving night feeds to my DD who is 18mths.
all i did was, starting from 5pm i gave her dinner and got her to eat as much as posible then let her play for a little while then give her a cup of warm milk. at 6.30pm i give her a snack of a yoghurt and fruit and contiue with the warm milk. i then give her a last breat feed for about 20 minutes. by this time it's about 7.30pm and she is really full up we still continue with the bottle of milk and maybe some biscuits or a goodie bar witch has loads of oats in good to make you sleepy.
about this time i ask her if she want to go to bed and then take her up stairs and put her in her bed and leave the room.
The first night i put her back in bed 10 times in forty minutes she then went to sleep, the second night i put her in once, third night only had to put her in bed the one time.
this diffenatly only works if you fill them up to the brim. she is also sleeping through from 8pm until 6am, this from a a baby that hasn't slepted more than 3 hours in the last 18 mths.
this worked really well for me and i hope it works for others.

hi katpink, that's really interesting. when did your dd get a bed not a cot? that makes a real difference, doesn't it, because it means she's not trapped there. i've been thinking of getting dd a bed...