17mo STILL wakes up at least 5/6 times - I can’t cope - please someone tell me what to do

[strawberrycheesecake1989]

17 mo has always been a terrible sleeper. He just wakes up constantly….think maybe he actually slept better as a newborn.

For the first few weeks of his life he was ok in his next to me cot but with all the relentless feeding we began to co sleep.

We still cosleep now as it’s the only way to get any sleep.

He is still breastfed and wakes up pretty much every 1-2 hours (sometimes more frequently) and goes on the boob, fusses, boob, back to sleep.

I just can’t handle it anymore. I feel like I’m going to have a breakdown.

Please can someone tell me what to do without telling me that I need to leave him to cry it out?

What if my husband cosleeps with him instead? Do you think then he might start to sleep through as my boobs won’t be there?

I’m really desperate. I just can’t go on. Please if anyone has any advice I’d appreciate it so much.

17 months of totally broken sleep. I can’t cope.

We are in a very similar situation OP. I’m sorry I’m of zero actual assistance, but I’m also pregnant too, and getting extremely frustrated with the lack of personal space/sleep/time. I have 2 older children too, and tbh even contemplating this stretch not ending and having a newborn is just sending me do-lally!

I’m actually contemplating not breastfeeding my next baby as it’s all too much (and I’ve exclusively breastfed all of my children so that’s a big statement for me!)

I think your starting point (and mine!) is to cut down and eventually out the night time feeds. It’s just not going to work otherwise.

Best of luck!! It’s awful!

He basically uses your boob as a dummy and has a very strong association with it to use it to get back to sleep.

I’d do a multi step approach:

1. Move him in to his own room
2. Explain to him that breastfeeding is only for the day now / last thing before he goes to sleep / morning / whenever
3. Send husband in to deal with night wakings

He will hate it for the first few nights but I suspect get used to it pretty quickly when he realises no boob is on offer

You’ll get lots of tears and anger, husband needs to be really patient and tell him calmly that it’s time for sleep. But it should be quite quick and isn’t CIO

I don't think there will be a way to do it with no crying but your husband can offer comfort so no need to CIO if you don't want to. I'd take your toddler shopping to choose a new cuddly toy to sleep with too.

Oh I relate so much! Identical situation with my first baby (who is now 4) and history is repeating itself with number 2 (15 months.)

Anyway with DS1 at about 20 months my husband took over (co-sleeping) for three nights in a row. It was really hard but mainly on DH who was woken frequently. DS1 actually did really well and responded to being rocked and stroked back to sleep. After that I came back into bed with him and would tell him "milk all gone" if he tried to feed in the night. He was older than your baby though so understood that concept. He eventually went down on his own mattress on our floor at about 2 years old and me and my husband would take turns in comforting him back to sleep. He's in his own room now but still rarely sleeps right through (sorry!) but DH can speak to him through a monitor now to comfort him. It's been a very long slog but those early days of co-sleeping and breastfeeding were great for DS and I wouldn't change it. You're being emotionally responsive and wonderful, I promise these days wont last forever.

What if my husband cosleeps with him instead? Do you think then he might start to sleep through as my boobs won’t be there?

This is basically what we did, albeit at a fair bit younger (?10 ish months). DH co slept with him, I was in a different room with a monitor and we gradually took away breastfeeding. Kinda did the Jay Gordon method: initially picked 6h where, even if he was crying, he didn’t get a feed. We then gradually (over a week or so) increased the time to all night with no feed. We then took away the cosleeping element and put him in a cot - this was in our room initially but to be honest he probably would have been fine going straight into his own room. DH spent about a week or so before all of this putting him down for naps and nights so he got used to not feeding to sleep.

I have to say for us it was a total game changer. Within a week or so he was down to 1 or 2 wakes and within a month he was sleeping through. There were some tears - he was surprisingly fine overnight but he did cry when we took away feeding to sleep for a night or so. He was never ever left to cry on his own, DH soothed him to sleep throughout. I have to say overall I was very pleasantly surprised - there wasn’t even remotely as many tears as we were expecting.

@ShirleyPhallus has outlined the best way, it’s more or less what we did, worked in 3 nights and they went straight to sleeping through for 12 hours. Expect A LOT of crying the first night! But just get your DH to stay with him.

For us it was 2-3 hours crying night 1, 15 mins night 2, 5 mins night 3

I’d suggest you go cold turkey feeding overnight and your husband does the night wakings. It’ll be a rough couple of nights but it will help.

Yep, I had to go cold turkey with night feeding. He didn't need it for food, it was comfort. My partner would do night wakings and cuddle/rock him. Hard at first but it did work eventually.