How do we stop breastfeed and start sleeping better before work starts?!

[freemyboobs]

Hi all- I'm after some advice/ideas. I have a 9 month old DS - I will be going back to work in 2 months time and between now and then we need to have stopped breastfeeding and started sleeping better- and I'm not sure how to get there!

On the milk front- he won't have a bottle (hits it away, even with freshly expressed milk in it) and only drinks a negligible amount of water from a sippy cup. I have tried the NUK bottles- a brief success a couple of months ago but then he twigged what was going on and started rejecting them again.

Sleep wise he is terrible- I either feed him to sleep or put him in a stretchy sling and wander round till he drops off. Through the night he'll wake 5 or 6 times and I just plug him in for a breastfeed to keep him sleeping. And if that doesn't work I bring him in to our bed which usually works.

Any advice on how to get to where I need to be? Am going back to full time shift work so we really do need to work towards becoming less reliant on Mummy for feeding and sleeping.... ever hopeful.

No advice re work as I'm a SAHM.

But I weaned both my DC off breast at 12 months. DC1 instantly started sleeping through night.... DC2 is now 2.5 years old and still wakes approximately 3 times a night and needs cuddled back to sleep, leaving her to cry = vomiting.

Hopefully your LO will sleep well off the breast, but it's not a given.

Thanks Roar - how did you manage to wean? And get them to sleep without feeding?

I will cling on to the success of your DC1 as light at the end of a tunnel....

Try to go straight to sippy cup and avoid the bottle if you can, so you don't have another challenge on your hands trying to wean them off the bottle. Try to get someone ellse to look after him during the day and put him to sleep - he is more likely to take a bottle/cup from someone else. When you feed bub before nap, offer a cup of milk first for a few minutes. If he doesn't want it then just breastfeed. Eventually he will try it and have a few sips and then take to it. Also after you feed him wake him up a bit before you put him down. I always fed my daughter to sleep but when I started to put her down drowsy but awake I was surprised at how well she did and also how much longer she would sleep (hooray!!). Introduce a new ritual instead of feeding to sleep - for us it was a cuddle and I love you etc, then lay her down and tuck in and then two short songs. It worked well and at nearly 3 we still do the exact same thing every time - they find the consistency very comforting. I continued to bf last thing at night for a few months after I went back to work - we both found it to be a nice way to reconnect. After a while my milk really slowed down so i would offer a cup first and then breast just as a comfort - and one day she just wasn't interested anymore. My daughter slept through the night from a young age so can't help you with that. I did always make her dad go in and try to comfort her back to sleep before I would feed her (mean mommy/wife!) so maybe try that. Nothing wrong with co-sleeping but it does make them want to feed in the night more, maybe avoiding bringing him into bed and a little bit if tough love will do the trick. It's horrible to hear them cry but you may be surprised by how little it takes. Good luck!

free I cut down the amount of bf they got during the night. Sometimes only offering 1 boob, rather than both.

Gradually DH took over the nighttime settling, as they didn't associate him with milk milk milk!

It didn't take as long as I'd feared.... although Dc2 still needs cuddled during the night, but that's okay.