Desperately need sleep / breastfeeding advice

[ChloeCC]

Please help! I have a 15 month-old who is addicted to boob, despite getting very little milk out of me now. He's been co-sleeping from about midnight for the last four months but it's killing me. He uses my boobs like they're dummies, he kicks and thrashes about, waking about five times a night and often taking ages to go back off. His cot is by my bed. I've just started putting him down very slowly without boob - I'm trying to teach him how to fall asleep without me. I'm bewildered by how to sleep train a baby who is OK for the first four / five hours of the night, then wakes up when I'm already in bed (right beside him). I know he should be in his own room but his dad's not keen - would this help our situation? My body aches from weird sleep positions, I'm anxious and miserable all day - I can't cope with it much longer. Any advice?

Own room. It doesn’t matter if partner is not keen, it’s not their boobs being chewed off. I’m still breastfeeding my 2 year old but she sleeps in her own room and has milk before bed only. If she wakes during the night then Dad goes in and shush pat until she settles. I was so nervous to start it but it worked really well and we all feel better for it. Try google the Jay Gordon night weaning method.

If his DF isn’t keen on him going into his own room I would hand KO over and ask him to settle him or sleep by him.

Other things to try are tanking him up in the day, so try to get in one or two extra feeds and extra cuddles and if that doesn’t work, try the Dr Jay Gordon’s night Weaning method.

I was going to suggest Jay Gordon night weaning too. I night weaned my son at a similar age (it took three attempts and I think we finally managed it at 18m) because his sleep pattern was similar. For him, all his sleep improvements have come about because of cutting a BF (I'm a massive BF advocate and I'm talking about cutting down BF on demand after he was 15mo and completely established on solids, not cutting feeds for little babies). I've just cut the first-thing in the morning feed and it's instantly shifted his sleep so he's now waking for the day at 7.30, not 6am (hallelujah!). Anyway, long and short of it, consider night weaning. Take it slowly, bank on three nights of it being hard and having to deploy every other possible method of soothing child back to sleep; don't expect it to be a linear progression as teething etc creates setbacks, but I do think it can work.

My son has just turned 2 and still wakes once a night for reassurance and a cuddle but otherwise sleeps all night in his own bed now. It's been a long road to get there.

Own room.

You could always go and sleep there if his dad insists he stays in your room.

I would put a mattress in his own room (double if you can otherwise normal single would be fine). You'll need to go slowly so put him down as normal in his room and escape, then go in when he wakes up and escape each time if you can. He might start waking less but if he doesn't, after a few weeks do the Jay Gordon night weaning plan with dh going in to him to coslesp instead. There probably will be some tears but he will settle with the comfort of cosleeping with DH. Then wean him off that.

But this may take months. But I wouldn't look for a quick fix because it's likely to be more stressful and might not be a long term solution. You want gradual changes to the new norm - eventually him falling asleep on his own in his own room for the whole night.