Can anybody help me in turning my ebf co-sleeping ds into a self settling, bottle fed ds?

[LuigiB]

I realise that it might take time and I have given myself until the end of February when I go back to work, hopefully this will be enough time to sort something out.

DS2 is 7mo, and is a happy boy, but is diabolical at sleeping like ds1 was. I have co-slept with ds2 as I didn't with ds1 and ended up a complete sleep-deprived mess. This way I have been able to get some sort of rest.

Now I need to make these changes but I am a bit lost at how to start tbh, especially at getting him to self settle as he has always been fed to sleep.

Also with the bottle, ds1 self weaned at 9mo due to illness, so I don't know how to wean ds2 (he will take the odd bottle though). I am not willing to keep feeding him after I go back to work, as I can't express.

Does anyone have any ideas about the first week? Or even the first day? I have plans on how to keep things going but I am just really stuck on ideas to kick it all off. Thanks for any ideas...

Dd is just 7m and i go back to work in 6 weeks. We've been ebf (bottle refuser) and partial cosleeping.

I coslept fully at first and then started returning to the cot until the time of night i was too exhausted to get up again. Tends to be 3am ish now.

I reduced feeds in the day going from lots of feeds including feeding to sleep for naps to just a cup mid morning and mid afternoon. I'm now just bf evening overnight and first morning feed. Then formula from a cup (though not as much as i would like). I do have some worries about stopping bf but my next plan is to increase the time overnight between feeds. Difficult though as i have DC1 to keep asleep too.

I'd strongly recommend reading the no cry sleep solution. It's taking a while but i can now put dd down drowsy after rocking/cuddling and it hasn't involved the painful pupd i did with DS. Lots of ideas for stopping cosleeping and it does focus on the bf mum.

Good luck.

My dc2 was a bit older then yours op but we sent dc1 to stay at grandparents one weekend so we could sort out dc2's horrendous sleeping habits as she was starting to wake and feed every 2hrs through the night. DH got up with dc2 everytime she woke and he rocked/cuddled her back to sleep instead of me breadtfeeding her back to sleep in our bed. He then put her back in her cot each time. It took a few days but her sleeping is much much better now and she spends most, if not all, of the night in her cot now. We never left her to cry or anything, she was always being cuddled by one of us and she was only cross with me for a little bit the first few times she woke up and then every time dh picked her up she cuddled straight into him and fell asleep quite quickly. She has now stopped her needing boob to get back to sleep and both dh and i are now getting a good 8hrs sleep a night. I honestly didn't think it would work as she is a total boob addict and I don't like her to get stressed so I didn't want her to be too upset by it but she really suprised me! Good luck

Thank you both so much for your replies, there are lots of ideas I can work on there. I also am not one for CC, I tried it a bit with ds1 and the stress was too much for me!

Just lurking.

I have 8.5 mo DS, I feed him to sleep. I co-slept in the early days as it was the sensible thing to do (am single mum with older DD so I needed to get as much sleep as poss and co-sleeping was the way forward!)

However, DS has gone from:

6.30pm-1am sleep in cot with a feed and back in cot til 4am, then bed with me until we get up.

to

7.30pm - 10pm, cry, me boob to sleep
10pm-11pm, cry, me boob to sleep
12pm - bed with me (as he is sobbing and thrashing in cot, bashing his head)

I don't get much sleep when he's in bed with me as he fusses and cries in his sleep

I've got PND and my HV has referred me to a Nursery Nurse for help with sorting the situation as I just haven't the energy to see it through each night and don't want to disturb DD as she has school. There is a long waiting list though and I go back to work 13th Jan.

I will look at the No Cry thing - thank you - see if I can sort the situation out myself.

I am with you there Tootaboo on not wanting to disturb your older school-going child (my ds1 is six), and also on the countless wake ups.

If you come up with any solutions then please post back on this thread, I can do the same, although I am not holding out much hope for the next couple of weeks...

It's nice to know I'm not alone!

My HV, although lovely, just said "well he has to learn to go to sleep on his own"

I felt like saying I KNOW!

I never mastered the self settling with DD,she was a nightmare sleeper from day 1 and it lasted til she was turned 2. DS started out so well, I had more sleep with him as a newborn that I had in the last 2 months of pregnancy.

I know we will have to do some hellish nights to get over this, I am so not looking forward to that!!

and yes, good idea - report back with what works/what doesn't.

Sounds like a very similar situation to me - ds1 started sleeping through the night at 4.5, and he still wakes quite frequently. Ds2 slept for most of the first two weeks of his life (and I was feeling smug that I had a good sleeper) and then something happened and he was awake for what seemed like most of the day and night. Now I can feel myself getting ground down with the lack of sleep and am trying frantically not to get in the same situation as ds1. Let's see- I think I might have a crack at that No Cry sleep solution, even a partial solution would be good at this stage...

I'll stick around too and post progress.

Just to get you started the first step in the No Cry sleep solution is to get them to go to sleep without the boob in their mouth. Do this by feeding as normal, then when drowsy and feed finished (that eyes closed, sucking but not swallowing phase just before sleep) remove the boob. Protest and rooting will follow. Replace boob and count to ten. Repeat (a lot) until they fall asleep without the boob in their mouth (took about 20 times the first time).
Do this for every settling. After about a week dd was actually taking herself off just before sleep. All settling since has been much easier.

There's much more to it but this is the vital first step for those with the book on the way.

Hope we all have formula guzzling cot sleepers asap!

Well last night was the first time I've refused to bf during the night. She went down at 730 and self settled a couple of times in the evening with no crying (I've been working on that by going in and cuddling and putting down sleepy over the last week or so, but feeding if she got upset).

She then woke at 1 and I fed her as much as possible, including waking her up after first side.

Then woke at 430 and I cuddled back to sleep with some bouncing, rocking and pacing, fair bit of crying and took 40 mins. Then woke at 6.

Actually not as bad as I was expecting. unfortunately DS decided to get up at 5.15 so bugger all sleep for me

I'm going to see how it goes over the next few nights and will post progress if this thread stays active in case it helps anyone else.

Good luck to all those hopeful for a decent sleep!

Oh and it was the first night she didn't spend any of it in bed with me. Which is good but a bit sad.