15 month old - sleep issues!!

[KatieD93]

My first posting but I'm in need of help from some wise mums!

My 15 month month old boy is breastfed but will take milk or formula in a bottle.
At the moment to go to sleep i have the small bedside light on in is room, breast feed him until he gets a bit drowsy, and then put him down and he has a little hippo from mothercare that plays a gentle song and has some little lights (he's had this since he was tiny so is very used to it by now!).
What I want is to be able to just give him a cuddle, put him down, and let him go to sleep by himself.

He can go from V drowsy, but I've tried before with feeding him in the other room, nice and calm, and then putting him in his bedroom, and he will cry, and cry, and cry, until he gets a feed to drift himself off again.

I am not comfortable just 'leaving him to cry' as he will go for hours if he feels like it, but I want to get him out of these sleep associations and I jsut don't know how to.

Me and my partner are off all week, so seems like this is the best week to try it out?

Need help from some wise mums!!!

[DrG13]

Which of the associations do you want to break, and why? I’m interested to know. I give my 13 month old a bottle and then lay him down with a musical toy playing. I have read that it’s good to try to break the bedtime bottle/boob habit, but I’m really not sure why it matters, so am interested in your reasoning! Is it just to speed things up?

[60percentofthetime]

Is it just bedtime that he feeds to sleep or every nap time too? My.
15 month old has a bottle in the evening but not during the day, I pretty much feed him to sleep, but I'm going with the flow and hoping that he'll eventually wean himself off it like DS1 - he was about 2 when he stopped having milk at bedtime

[KatieD93]

Yes - it's to speed things up. I have no issue feeding him, and I'm not bothered about the time taken, It just makes things very very hard when he's anywhere else (Granny's house etc) because he just can't get to sleep sometimes - which means when he gets dropped off when I've been at work he's just a state.

I tried tonight, he had a bath, massage, warm bottle of milk, and then went down with a little cuddle and screamed initially for about ten minutes and as I was about to go in to him, it turned to a grumble and then after another five or six minutes he jsut gave up.

Was a bit heartbreaking but it's definitely better for him to be able to snuggle down and go to sleep rather than have that association with rocking, bouncing, and the boob!

[TittyGolightly]

screamed initially for about ten minutes

How does that fit with

I am not comfortable just 'leaving him to cry'?

[TittyGolightly]

it's definitely better for him to be able to snuggle down and go to sleep rather than have that association with rocking, bouncing, and the boob!

If that were true they’d have evolved off switches by now.

[KatieD93]

@TittyGolightly what do you mean 'If that were true they’d have evolved off switches by now'

I've heard about people leaving their kids for an hour to let them cry it out, and I didn't want to do that. I don't think leaving him ten minutes to cry then go to sleep is quite the same thing