Where to even begin with sleep training...?

[LiquoriceAllsortsCandySticks]

Hi Trusty Mumsnetters,

Once again you're my first port of call for advice!

I have an 11 month old, and in some ways we're doing really well on the sleep front. He drops off really quickly (naps and bedtime), and when he wakes he goes straight back to sleep. But, he is totally dependent on boob to do this, and is still waking approx 5 times a night.

I'm pretty convinced of the need for some gentle training (CIO/controlled crying isn't something I want to pursue), but I have a few basic (daft??) questions:

• we're currently co-sleeping. Do I move him to his own bed/room before I start to wean him off needing the boob to settle, or wean him off boob whilst co-sleeping, or do both at the same time?
• when I'm trying to comfort him when he's in his own bed, how do I physically do it... he's very low down and I sort of have to lean right into the cot to even reach him! (If I set the cot mattress higher he can climb out)?
• should I be concentrating on self settling for naps and bedtime and then hope to see gradual improvement in nighttime waking, or do I need to tackle nighttime waking head on?
• If I'm doing gradual withdrawal at bedtime, do I have to repeat that procedure every time he wakes in the night? (horrified face)?

All advice/experiences gratefully received! Also interested to know if anyone has just rolled on with co-sleeping/boobing to sleep with LO's sleep gradually improving naturally..

Thx as always

Controllled crying didn’t work for us, so no tips. We co sleep. I always put them in own cot once asleep and bring them back in if they wake in the night. Much easier for bf.

If you want to try it, it might be easier to wait until you’re no longer bf.

Comfort wise, as some stage he will need to be in his own bed, so just sit with him. Rub his back. Try to keep him in the cot and not pick him up. This is where I fail at it!

Once ready, whenever that is, make his bed a safe place where you have bedtime stories and sit together. Put him down sleepy and sit with him. Maybe some soft music.

Follow Feed, Sleep Bond on Facebook or buy the Gentle Sleep Book - it's so helpful and also reassuring about normal infant sleep. It's bloody soul destroying though when you have constantly broken sleep so hopefully the tips in the book will help you. Take care x

I think whilst you're still breastfeeding it will be very difficult to sleep train. Also 11 months is still so young. As you increase his solid foods, and start offering other drinks during the day he may slowly wean himself off the night feeds, however lots of breastfed babies will completely drop day time feeds but keep nights going until they're around 2.

I really recommend reading Dr Ferber’s book (I got the e-book) - it really helped me understand a lot more about the process of sleep.
There’s lots of other chapters and useful stuff apart from the “Ferber Method” bit. There’s no harm in reading it even though you don’t want to use that particular aspect.

You’re going to really struggle if he’s breastfeeding 5 times a night at almost a year. Accept that it’ll be a long process especially if you don’t want to do any controlled crying. Basically you need to comfort him without feeding so just rock (he’s probably too big) or put on his side and shush and pat. My little one did accept this at about 8 months but it took a long time and we never fed to sleep after she hit 12 weeks. Followed eat, play, sleep in the day and always put her down awake after her last feed at night.

Oh and you’re going to struggle so much not to breastfeed if you’re still co sleeping, try getting him sued to the cot for day naps then transition to nights quickly. It will be hard so I suggest a comforter if he doesn’t take a dummy.

I agree it would be hard to do whilst co sleeping. When we did sleep training we put ours in his cot in own room. We started a programme where we didn't feed to sleep one of us stayed in the room with him until he fell asleep. We would comfort stroke him talk to him etc. Then we gradually moved moved closer to the door over a number of nights until we would put him down in cot and leave.

Initially I would give two breastfeeds when he woke in the night one around 10pm and again at least four hours later (2am) and again at least four hours later (6am). If he woke between these I would settle him without milk. This can take time in the beginning but worth persisting with. I would put him back in the cot before he was asleep after a milk feed. He ended up dropping the 2am feed naturally and then I stopped the earlier feed and that was when he started sleeping through. You responses during the night need to be consistent so your LO learns what to expect. Good luck!

Are you a SAHM or do you work?

In your case, I would strongly consider putting him in his own room and getting your DH to take over all night wakings for a while. Strongly suspect once it is clear that boob isn't on offer, it will be fine. I would let DH do whatever feels right - cuddle and back in cot, shush pat - almost doesn't matter as the key is breaking the boob sleep association

Thanks so much for the advice. So it seems that breaking the boob/sleep association will be the key bit if I go forward with training.

How do you physically comfort him when he's in the cot? He's almost too low down for me to reach even!!!

I'm on mat leave at the moment, but going back to work in Jan...

Have you tried a dummy?

@Newmum29

Oh and you’re going to struggle so much not to breastfeed if you’re still co sleeping, try getting him sued to the cot for day naps then transition to nights quickly. It will be hard so I suggest a comforter if he doesn’t take a dummy.

It is perfectly possible to still cosleep having reduced and stopped BF overnight. We did.

Regarding the comfort him when in the cot, we did this at around 17 months i think, and we just cleared the room and put the mattress on the floor, made it so much easier to move from hold to sleep to cuddle to sleep to lie down to sleep. Since then we just left things that way and he never gets up by himself after the first few times we took him back to his bed.
I won't deny it was still super super hard and involved no sleep whatsoever for a couple of nights but in the end now we only have to go in about once a week to help him. He's just over 2 years now.
Good luck, it's really tough but try to focus on teaching them that is ok to sleep on their own, rather than that you're abandoning them. Yes it's often a struggle to learn things as we all know, and your child is learning a lot, so have empathy but remember whatever happens you won't be up every night when they're 18 years!
Good luck.

Oh and forgot to mention that's when we abolished breast feeding, once he associated a book in his bed rather than breast feeding in our bed, it became much easier to break the association.

Having BF and coslept with 2, is so it the other way round: move to their own room first and then gradually reduce BF.

However, I'd abandon the idea of the cot.

We used a double mattress on the floor with DS when he was 12 months. (DD went into a single bed at 16 mo but the set up with DS was so much better). If you don't want to call it a mattress on the floor, tell people he's on a Montessori bed!

We moved DS into his room but changed nothing else. I would feed him to sleep lying on his mattress and then when he was asleep, I would escape. If he woke up, I'd go back in and feed back to sleep, then escape again (or fall asleep!) He actually started to sleep through quite quickly after that which wasn't expected but a nice surprise! Then we gradually changed the feeding to sleep to go to sleep.

One danger with stopping BF and then moving him, you may replace the boob with another sleep crutch. That may or may not be a problem for you but it's unlikely you'll be able to just put him in a cot with nothing. So further along the road you might have to 'train' to get rid of whatever you choose to replace BF with. However, that may never be a problem or you might find yourself battling with the dummy fairy in 3 years!

Following. Have no advice sorry but a bottle fed 6mo xx

Call it a montessori bed 😆

I love the idea of moving him to his own room with a floor bed. And gradually getting him used to me not sleeping with him... I think I can see that that would then make it easier to reduce the boob.

Many thanks all... I'll try this