Did stopping breastfeeding improve baby’s sleep?

[Moonshine160]

DS2 is nearly 7 months old and is waking hourly overnight, sometimes two hourly if I’m lucky. He only ever naps for 30 mins at a time. I honestly feel broken and I am writing this while crying because I am truly exhausted. I have to feed him to sleep as I can’t get him to sleep any other way. This is for every wake up in the night. We’ve recently got him to accept formula in a bottle from DH. Even when he’s had this, he still wants a breastfeed to get him to sleep and won’t settle unless he has this. I’m starting to feel touched out and completely fed up. If I gradually introduce more formula and end breastfeeding, would this improve his sleep? Did this happen for anyone else? He definitely has a feed to sleep association (breast, he’s never fallen asleep on the bottle). I am considering sleep training but I don’t know what method or how to even go about it. I just need to do something because my mental health is suffering.

DS has no health issues. Tongue tie was cut at 8 weeks. He is being weaned onto solids (purée and finger food but only has tiny bits of the finger food so far) and has taken to it really well, he’s on three small meals a day.

I didn't find any difference, DC1 still fed to sleep and woke up lots just had the hassle of sorting bottles out.

It's tough when they don't sleep, it will improve and this will not last forever.

Didn’t make a bit of difference to either child. Sleep training with the gradual retreat took us from 12 wakeups per night to one at 7 months. The improvement was immediate, i.e. the first night we tried it.

Not really, well a bit perhaps but both mine refused to sleep in their beds

Don't think so, but it's easier to cuddle back to sleep than feed (we cosleep from first wake). Weaned at 18 months.

Is he in bed with you? We had hourly waking for months and I was never that knackered as just stuck boob in and went back to sleep.

Sorting health issues was what made sleep a lot better, low iron, allergies, ENT visit etc

Not for mine. She was weaned onto formula at 6 months (I had to stop bf for health reasons) and her sleep was shit before, and shit after. Our issue was similar to PPs in that she didn't know how to self settle. It was sleep training that fixed things for us, including switching up her routine so she wasn't feeding to sleep anymore and was put down fully awake in her cot. It transformed her sleep in a matter of days and now she sleeps really well.

I knew the switch to formula wouldn't help things because I knew she wasn't waking due to hunger. She'd often wake every hour and then fall back to sleep within a minute of feeding!

Ahshshsha no! And hasn't for any baby in real life I know of 🤣🤣

I had big babies and BF until over a year. After 6 months when they we eating and BF I would give my DS porridge at bedtime then a BF. If he woke at night I gave him a sip cup with water. He soon stopped waking up as water is boring and his tummy was full from BF and porridge!

It's all about how they get to sleep. With DS I tried not to let him feed to sleep and had to get DH to put him to sleep.in the middle of the night so he didn't associate it with feeding from about 12 weeks.
BF dd was sleeping through from 5 weeks but I never let her fall totally asleep on the boob from day one.
You have to teach them a different way of falling asleep.
You might have to do some sort of habit breaking with you not involved

I might weaned at 14 months. As we had fed to sleep I had to switch to rocking for a few nights. After that he started sleeping through. It wasn’t one hundred percent though. There were long periods when he was awake for a couple of hours in the night (can’t remember age) but night weaning definitely helped!

I read the Precious Little Sleep ebook and it helped me figure out sleep training with both kids. It worked amazingly well -- we were in your shoes prior to sleep training. Wishing you luck!

@LysHastighed was there much crying for your baby? Need to do something as on a similar number of wakes but am scared of reaction!

OP I'm the same as you, 7 month old EBF. I've upped her evening meal to see if that would fill her more, but it hasn't. At night time I am up every 1.5-2hrs feeding her. It's not even like she's that hungry tho, she uses my boob as like a dummy, will suck for a few seconds then go back to sleep. I've tried her on breastfeeding dummies but she won't take to them. She won't take to a bottle either. I haven't had a full nights sleep for over a year, I'm mentally drained, tired all the time and fed up of it now.
God knows what it's doing to my health?

Thanks everyone. A real mixture of experiences! My issue is that DS has always been a fussy feeder and since about 4 months old will only feed when he’s sleepy. I’ve tried moving the feed to the start of the bedtime routine but he won’t feed. Is nosey and looks around the room, even when I know it’s been ages since his last feed. He often will only feed in a dark quiet room, then inevitably falls asleep. He is only on the 2nd centile (and has dipped below this at times) so I’ve always been worrying about making sure he has enough milk. When I give him a bottle he isn’t fussy and will have the milk wherever. I feel stuck in a cycle that I’m really struggling to break.

Both my kids sleept through at around 12 months old. Both still breastfeeding at that age.

I stopped breastfeeding my eldest at 15 months and it was like a switch, I think it was a night or two and he was sleeping through. He's been a brilliant sleeper since.
I stopped feeding my youngest a few weeks ago at just shy of 3 years and her sleep is hugely improved in those 2 weeks. Instead of several wakes and going back to almost cluster feeding between 3am and 6am, she's waking once for a cuddle and straight back off

So for me there was definitely a correlation with stopping breastfeeding, however had they been younger and therefore waking through hunger, I think it would have been quite different.

Yep, DD woke hourly until 19 months, stopped breastfeeding and 2 days later she started waking 1-2 times a night and has done since

I bf both of mine until nearly two years old but might weened at 6/7 which was the advice at the time. I was ridged about them sleeping 7:30 to 7:30.

Not much crying because the first three nights you can cuddle and touch them (better if other parent does this bit). You have to be decisive and relaxed yourself though. There were about 20 minutes where we thought it’s never going to work, and then it suddenly did. 7–11 months was one wakeup per night but from 11 months and now for years she’s slept through the night. She self-weaned at 18 months so bfing made no difference.
Second baby only ever woke up twice a night from birth. After training he continued to wake up twice a night but at least he fell asleep on his own. He slept through at 18 months and weaned at 3.
The biggest improvement seems to be for very alert babies who aren’t linking the sleep cycles at all. If that’s your baby probably anything is worth trying.

No. Weaned about 6 months but didn't sleep through till 2.5. Got through a lotta coffee at work ...

Both of mine were breastfed for a year. Both slept through from 6 weeks.

Amongst my breastfed (5) nieces they varied from birth, 3 months, 6 months, 6 months, age 3.

My (2) nephews who were bottle fed slept through from age 2 and age 4.

Feeding choice does not impact on sleeping. Baby will sleep through when baby is ready.

My first child went on a feeding strike at his first birthday and slept through for the first time that night.

but six months later he started sleeping really badly again.

my other two slept badly whether I was breastfeeding them or not.

When my DD was 9 months I went back to work, which included night shifts. She sleeps far better when I'm not around. We've always co-slept, and if she's just with her Dad she knows there isn't the chance of milk so doesn't bother waking him up for it. When I'm around she wakes me at least 3 times per night (she's now 1.5 years). So yes... weaning the feeds might help with sleep. I'd probably leave it until she's reliably getting enough fluid from food/formula to start cutting feeds though (yours may well be but mine took a bit of time to fully accept formula feeds!).

@LysHastighed Ok thanks that's useful! Did you do the same approach for overnight wakes or just feed on demand? I'm particularly nervous about the overnight side of things!

I think it helped but I stopped breastfeeding at the same time that we switched to 2 naps so I'm not sure which did the trick.

What's your nap schedule like?

Night weaning stopped the hourly wake ups within 2 nights and DS was sleeping through reliably within a couple of weeks. But this was quite a bit older - closer to the year mark. We continued to BF during the day for about another 6 months.