Breastfeeding and a night away from 1 year old

[Cleanqueennot]

Baby is currently 7 months old and still sleeping in his next to me crib and I co sleep sometimes. I don’t want to wean him off the breast and I’m in no rush to get him in his own bed/room but when he’s 1 I’ll be going back to work and spend the occasional night away. At the moment he feeds to sleep at the start of the night and wakes every 2-4 hours. Nothing but breast feeding settles him, which I don’t mind and want to continue comforting him as long as he needs. My only worry is what will happen when I’m away for work, and DH has him without me.

Has anyone else breastfed and had a similar experience? How did you make it work? Should I chill and it will all be fine, or do I need to prepare myself for a horrendously traumatic experience for both me and baby while I’m working hundreds of miles from home? 🥺

Easier said than done, but I wouldn't worry about this now. It's 5 months away so breastfeeding could be very different. When my DD was 1 she used to occasionally spend the night with her grandparents - by that point she had dropped down to just two feeds a day, one first thing in the morning and one just before bed. When she went to her grandparents she just didn't feed, and wasn't fussed. It was only when she was at home that she wanted to be breastfed. I fed her until she was over two without any problems from the odd night away. She stopped feeding altogether when I got pregnant with DD2 who is currently 9 months and combi fed, and I've spent one night away from her recently without any problems for breastfeeding either.

When you get closer to the time you'll be spending nights away, you might want to look at seeing if he can be settled other ways eg in his own room, and sending your husband in with a bottle of expressed milk. But he could easily get there by himself before then so I'd just got with what works at the moment. If you think how different he is now to what he was 5 months ago, he'll change massively by the time this comes around.

I started working occasional night shifts around that stage OP, baby who was so booby normally was actually great with Grandma (dad was away with work), which gave dad comfort to try himself. Baby carried on BF until 2.5. My boobs weren’t too happy though!

@Potatomashed @WeWereInParis thanks, that’s so reassuring to hear!

Probably not what you want to hear, but just to give balanced response, my experience has been the total opposite if this... my two girls have never settled in the night without feeding back to sleep, it got harder as they got older if anything.
Daytimes- fine.Evenings- fine, but as soon as they've been asleep and need to re-settle, they screamed until I fed them (til about 2 for DD1 when I was able to successfully night wean....DD2 is only 15mths)
If I was you I would actually start changing things up now, introducing your DH settling him sometimes during the night too, maybe giving him a bottle of expressed or formula milk and make that a consistent routine.I may be wrong, but i think if you don't you will find he is going to struggle.Boobies are like a babies comforter or dummy, they rely on feeding so much more for comfort and security than we often realise....so their comfort is suddenly not there one night it must be very upsetting for them.I'm sure he would settle eventually with your DH if he had to, but it could well mean ALOT of crying if you go 'cold turkey' and don't gradually get him used to managing without being fed back to sleep between now and then.

@Mummyof287 thank you, have you actually been away from your babies though? I keep reading that somehow when mummy isn’t around baby seems to instinctively know and won’t ‘need’ the booby?

Nothing my DH does will settle baby at the moment unfortunately but I’ve never been away. Not tried any bottles because now we’ve started giving him solids we are trying to get him used to open cups which is a challenge, but hoping will pay off later haha! So I’m reluctant to introduce bottles at this stage when we’ve got this far without them. It’s not advisable to use bottles past 1 year old.

It’s a long way away - hard to plan anything, some might be chilled about it, some would be very unsettled.
I think the issue at 1 is they don’t understand well enough you are coming back, so would be upset, now at 2 my daughter gets I am out so no boob but knows I will be coming back - not left her a full night though!

This is a fair point. I know I need to start leaving him with other people more. I have left him a handful of times with his dad during the day and it’s been fine. It’s just overnight that makes me worry the most because he feeds to sleep and needs boob to resettle, and I’m not ready to stop this or interfere too much with it unnecessarily.

I will be doing some keeping in touch days with work soon that involves being away for a few hours a week so hoping this gets him used to me not always being here 🤞🏼

Mine would only feed to sleep when he was little. I kept BF until his birthday (when I was always going to stop), but the SECOND he hit 6 months I started sleep training to break his sleep association. It was life changing when he could self settle.

It took a long time to fix, so I would start thinking now about how you're going to do it.

I've tried popping out, so I'm not the one settling her back to sleep or even in the house, but DH had to call me back as she was getting in a state.He can get her to sleep in minutes any other time by cuddling/rocking her, but there's something about her waking up after sleeping and going back off where she needs me to feed her.Maybe if you start gently transitioning him to the new routine with DH involved bit by bit from a young age he may be different though? My two had/have never known anything other than me resettling them for a long time, so maybe why it's been harder.

Does your baby have any other things that he could use as a comfort such a muslin or Dummy? Maybe that might be worth a try.

Okay- you may find he wants a drink in the night still too, especially if he is used to a feed, so you might want to ensure when the time comes that DH can at least give him some milk or water during the night in a sippy cup or something.xx

Ooh that’s quite worrying, I’d hate for hun to be in a state while I’m so far from home! I’m thinking maybe at weekends I could have DH waking up with me and offering milk at least sometimes. May have to invest in sippy cups just for night time though as can’t imagine open cups will be very good for night feeds!

Baby doesn’t seem to find comfort in a muslin, will not take a dummy either! Hopefully just having dad more involved alongside me with might make a difference 🤞🏼

The magical “when mummy’s not here they will settle for someone else another way” unfortunately didn’t work for us either. I’ve been out before and baby got in such a state dad gave up and played until I got home later.

Not to try and worry you as I do think the majority will be fine when you’re not there. If your baby is pretty chill then I’m sure it would be fine. I knew it wouldn’t work for us as LO has always been what is referred to as “high needs.”

Mine was fine. I breastfed until she was 2 and a bit and started having the odd night away from when she was 1. It was fine, she woke up early but I wasn't there so it wasn't my problem ☺️

I went back to occasional night shifts when dc1 was around 11 months. First one, she refused to take a cup of milk (hadn't had a bottle since I stopped expressing at 12 weeks so wasn't going to start again at 11 months) so DH just made her some milky Weetabix and gave her that. They were both fine.

He may need to do things differently to what you would usually do but as long as she's fed and cared for, it'll be fine.