Need advice from extended bfers - still feeding 24mo to sleep

[IHeartIona]

Hi
I'd like some advice please from other natural term / 'extended' bfers about feeding to sleep, and what to do when it stops working i.e. how to move on from it.
My dd has just turned 2 and I still feed her to sleep.
Some days it takes longer than others for her to go to sleep - her 2nd molars are coming through and she is teething quite badly some days, but seems better on other days. I give her calpol or calprofen before bed when she's teething.
I'd like to be prepared for how she might move on from feeding to sleep, and how to deal with it/what changes to make to her bedtime routine.
Am also considering night-weaning soon as am exhausted, she's up 3 or 4 times a night at the moment.
Any tips or experience would be welcomed, thanks.

DS was like this until, well around the time DD was born. He started sleeping through about half the time about 6 weeks before she was born - the night wakings just got later and later I think, until it was morning.
As for the feeding to sleep, I probably now do it half the time, depends how tired he is. If he's not looking like he'll be asleep any time soon I ask him to go to lie down and I read him a story (favourite cuddly toys come into their own at this point). He needed to be distracted/bribed with a cup of water / I need the toilet / to check on DD initially - this is getting better. Sometimes there are tears and tantrums, but he tends to want me more than more milk iyswim so is happy for me to read to him.
I read him my own book rather than his, otherwsie it's too exciting. Also, if he's messing about or just not looking tired I give him a kiss and say I'll come and check on him in 10mins - more often than not he's asleep during that time. If not, DH goes to read to him - the books he reads send him straight to sleep

thanks SPBInDisguise, how old is your DS now? is he in a bed? my dd shares our bed still. she is happy to stay on our bed when I get her a drink or something, I'll have to try stretching that out a bit before I come back.

My ds1 is still fed to sleep most of the time (he is nearly 3), though I know he can go to sleep without being bf. We did make progress after his last teeth came through, but it all rather went to pot after ds2 arrived and we are still working through it a bit.

I started making sure he was really dog tired before going to bed, as sometimes it would take nearly an hour and I was exhausted - I think half the time he just wasn't tired enough. Now, we wind things down and often he will tell me he is tired and wants to go to bed.

I also took a cup of milk up to bed and encouraged him to sip on that while I read stories to him.

I also started unlatching and saying 'lets have cuddle time now'. I would (and still do) tell him I would count to 5, or 10, and then it was cuddle time. We often get to 3 and he unlatches himself, rolls over and goes to sleep. Sometimes (like tonight!) he objects though.

Night weaning.....sigh....happened without trying when I was pg (though I suspect my milk had pretty much dried up so he realised there was no point in waking up). Now its back and he went through a stage of being like a newborn feeding and I had to take more drastic steps. I explained a couple of days beforehand that there would be no more bf in the night until mummy had woken up. I got DH to go to him or I went to him (wearing bra and holding arms over boobs) and he was a tiny bit upset but really much less than I was expecting. If he wakes after 4am I feed him so I know he will go back to sleep (he went through a horrible phase of waking at 4am wanting to play...). Sometimes I forget though and just feed automatically which is bad, but I'm on autopilot sometimes in the night. Key is consistency though (something I struggle with!). Its much better though than it was.

I still bf 21m DS to sleep but am also looking for ideas as am 8w pg with #2.

PUPD (Baby Whisperer) has helped a lot - reducing from 3-4 night feeds to 1 (and sometimes 0 ). That has helped a lot with the exhaustion.

But we don't co-sleep. When/if we do (e.g. on holiday) he feeds a lot more.

thanks preggers. its interesting to hear your experiences!
in the night my dd has milk then rolls over and goes to sleep, but hardly ever at bedtime. would be good if she did it then too. think I might need to quieten down her evenings a bit, she always gets very excited playing with me or dh before bed so takes ages to unwind.

thanks LLJ4. well done on the nights with no feeds! not sure PUPD would be work for us cosleeping, but I may give it a go! anything's worth a try

The other thing that probably didn't help us was that we started co-sleeping full time with ds1 when I was pg with ds2, mainly through sheer laziness and my bulk which I couldn't fit into ds1's cotbed anymore.

What I should have done in hindsight was to keep him in his own bed and then when he started sleeping through it could have carried on beyond when ds2 arrived. We ended up with all sorts of shenanigans when ds2 arrived and have only just got him into his new bed and stopped co-sleeping (which has improved his sleep as I am not there on tap for him during the night).

Unwinding at bedtime is important I think. Once the adrenaline has gone they realise they are actually quite tired and don't put up so much of a fight. I have also tried audio tapes to listen to in bed but with some limited success, but we do still listen to a CD of lullabies which works well as it seems to act as a bit of a sleep cue.

Doesn't always work of course - we had a song and dance getting him to bed tonight!

will try making evenings a bit quieter I think and see if that helps.
have recently taken the side off her (empty) cotbed and put in a cotbed duvet and pillow for her, so am hoping to tempt her into there soon as well

I'm off to bed now, so will come back to this tomorrow, night all

DD, coming up to 4, is going through a stage of wanting to be bf to sleep. There have been periods when she's been happy to wave good night after her bedtime feed and for me to leave her awake - and with no tears or tribuilations, to go off to sleep on her own.

Talking to friends with DCs of similar ages, tend to think this up and down pattern of nodding off alone, and then needing more attention to get off to sleep is pretty common. Just thought I'd mention that, as because I am the only bf-ing mother of a nearly 4 year old I know, sometimes I fall into the trap of thinking it is the bf-ing that is the issue - where as in reality all parents have simliar challenges.

As SPB says, we also have an alternative routine - she will lie now and try and get to sleep as long as Mummy stays with her. I used to bring a magazine and sit on my glider, but lately I tend to bring the lap top.. I'm firm that she has to lie down quietly, and she usually nods off in 10 minutes or so.

I find the main issue for me is that it is so easy to bf her to sleep (assuming she is tired and ready to go).. So I think sometimes I feed her for longer than I'm happy with it, in the hope that she will nod off. If she doesnt' - and I then have to negotiate into the alternative routine, go get the lap top etc. - I can end up feeling a bit stressed, esp when I'm exhausted too.

I sympathise with the night wakings. Sleep (or rather lack of) has always been the main bugbear with regard to parenting DD (who is charming and easy in most other ways). I wuld generally always feed her back to sleep if she woke. It is only recently taht I have tried the Mummy is too tired line (say when she was 3 1/2 years) and she has accepted that pretty much without protest - not sure if that is becasue of her age though.

thanks for sharing your experiences PinkDawn. I think we need to try to find an alternative routine that will work for us. She likes to pretend to go to sleep, eyes screwed up tightly, and for me to pat her (like they do at nursery for lunchtime nap) but then pops up a minute later! might try book of my own, laptop wouldn't work here I don't think as she would want to see Iggle Piggle or Thomas on it....

actually last night I said no milk for one of her wakings (think it was early morning, around 5, 5.30) and she cried only very briefly but lay there awake for a bit. finally went to sleep say half an hour later I think and we both had a lovely lie-in till just before 9. so perhaps she might be ready to try night weaning over Easter. fingers crossed.