Sleep training & weaning 1 year old (not working?)

[Firsttimemum2001]

Hey mamas, so I recently started sleep training my 13 month old because I want to stop breastfeeding and he had such a strong feed to sleep association, I had to sleep train him so he can learn to fall asleep without it.
I do this by placing him on his tummy and rubbing his back until he falls asleep. We’ve been doing it now for over a week, sometimes he cries but never for more than a minute or two.
HOWEVER, it hasn’t really made much difference to his night wakings. E.g. I will rub his back to sleep at 7pm and he will wake an hour or two later so I repeat the process. The problem is when it gets to 11pm/12 the rubbing back to sleep doesn’t work and he will scream and scream until I breastfeed him.
Does this mean he is genuinely hungry then? Because he takes a full, proper feed. I don’t think it is for comfort then because it’s not like he doesn’t know how to fall asleep without it, as he does now, since I have introduced the back rubs.
I’m not sure what to do, I have been feeding him if he wants it because I don’t like the idea of him being hungry/starving at night (& I also don’t want to wake the neighbours!) but how will I ever stop breastfeeding if he still needs night feeds? I’m just a bit confused as I’ve heard you can stop breastfeeding at 12 months.
Any help would be greatly appreciated! No mum friends so have no one to ask.

Bump 😅

This will all depend on how much he is eating in the day and how he is napping.
please could you post an example day schedule for him - milk, solids and naps?

@LapinR0se thanku!
Typical day:
•7:00am wake up and breastfeed
•8:00am breakfast (doesn’t eat much tho, think he’s full from the milk.)
•10am nap for 30-45mins
•12:00 lunch
•2pm nap for 1 hour
•5pm dinner
•6pm breastfeed
•7pm bedtime

I must add tho, he definitely has more than 2 breastfeeds a day! I just don’t really keep track of it as other then the morning and evening one, the rest are at random times. I’d say he probably has around 3/4 milk feeds in the day.

The daytime sleep is a bit low, ideally he’d be having around 2.5 hrs of sleep at this age.
What does he eat for lunch and dinner typically and any snacks? Also how is the water consumption

He is going to need night feeds for a while yet, definitely too soon to stop them. As for the weaning he's only one, it takes time for a baby to get to the stage where they are eating enough that they are not relying on milk as much.

@LapinR0se Ohk. Well is there anything I can do to help him have more daytime sleep? He typically has a 2 hr afternoon nap with his childminder just never with me!
Lunch is normally something like cheese sandwich, salad and yoghurt or hummus and pita, salad and yoghurt.
Dinner I make him stuff like pasta, lentils, jacket potato.
Snacks he just has those baby snacks in the baby food aisle so carrot melts for example.
Water I’m not sure how much he drinks tbh as I don’t track but definitely multiple times a day, I offer him water a lot and he sometimes helps him self because I leave a cup in reach for him.

Its definitely not too soon to night wean if you want to, plenty of babies sleep through from younger ages.

His body is used to waking for milk in the night, so you have to shift his biorhythms. Its like how you always get hungry at lunch time because your body is used to eating then. Will he take a bottle or sippy cup? I would offer water when he wakes and then just power through. It may be a bumpy couple of nights and you might need to bring breakfast forward to 6am for a bit, but he will make it

Yes you can cap the morning nap at 20 mins from 9.40-10 and then do the lunchtime nap from 12.45-2.45. Try not to feed him to sleep for any naps or sleeps as self settling at the start of a nap can also lengthen duration. I would try and stop patting all the way to sleep now and just pat to calm.
it sounds like he is hungry at that 10pm wake up so try increasing portion size of his meals, adding plenty of good fats eg full fat Greek yogurt, avocado, peanut butter.
He does not nutritionally need a night feed any more but a hungry baby is not going to sleep well.

I'd look at dropping the morning nap to get longer in the afternoon.

Also, if feeding to sleep is working, don't make life hard for yourself just yet.

Perhaps re order his bedtime so that feed isn't the last thing (we swapped milk and story over)

You could also try another method like gradual retreat. Start using for the day time naps when you have more energy and patience.

If all else fails, controlled crying worked well for me twice

The baba needs to drop naps themselves. Don't force it.

Keep breastfeeding to sleep if it's working. And if they get enough calories during the day they will drop night feeds. X

No advice but just wanted to say good luck I am in similar boat, DS is full of cold but I keep saying once he is better I am going to try again to ween off…..I am knackered and he’s starting to bite again and I just want my body back now 😭

I can usually rock DS back to sleep on night wakes until nearer 12 then I do feed him, if he wakes again after I either rock or feed depending how long it’s been since the last waking.

DC 9 & 6 now and I had to night wean both. I found weaning a very tough period. I can't remember what I did with 9 yr old (which is good, as it shows it does pass), but I think I just put her with Dad as he obviously can't give in and feed her! With the 2nd DC it needed to be quieter, so I copied what my similarly struggling friend did and gave them a biscuit in the night instead of milk. In then kept downgrading the biscuit until it was a cracker at which point baby pushed it away and association broken. The whole pat to sleep thing never worked for me. Weaning from bf-ing is very emotionally draining for Mum as baby really does not give up easily (in my experience), I hope you have lots of support. I dreamed of having a self-weaning child!

@espresso14 thanks for your comment and insight. I agree with the sentiment that weaning is going to be very emotionally draining. As much as I am glad I breastfed him, I kinda wish I knew this before I started! I had no idea it was going to be so hard to stop and it all feels quite overwhelming tbh and I feel guilty that I’m taking something so precious away from him.
I think I’m gonna do it very gradually and just hope for the best.🤞

Tbf, even if you bottle feed you have to take those away at some point too.

I'd look at cutting down breastfeeding in the day before trying to night wean. Get him out of the habit of breastfeeding every few hours.

He is definitely not too young to night wean in principle, though.

Of course he could still be feeding for comfort especially if he’s not getting that same comfort he’s used to due to the sleep training

none of us know whether he’s feeding for comfort or hunger but this just proves that sleep training simply does not work

@LapinR0se thanks, this is really helpful to know.
Re stopping rubbing his back to sleep and only doing it to calm him… would u still recommend this when sometimes it’s takes upto 30 minutes to put him to sleep?
im not sure what I’m doing wrong maybe I’ve got the timings wrong cus sometimes it takes half an hour of rubbing but then other times it takes 5 minutes. Is this normal?
I just worry that if I only rub his back to calm him then we might be sat there for hours !!!

I think if you’re consistent and get the nap timings right, it should take 15 mins max for him to fall asleep. And I wouldn’t rub his back if he isn’t really crying.

Some well known IBCLCs (Kathryn Stagg etc) don't recommend night weaning until after 18months when you can talk it through with them a bit more.
Even if you stop BF you will probably still have night wakings at that age. With both of mine, their sleep didn't properly settle until nearer 2yrs when we were through the big developmental stuff. I've just night weaned my 2yr old by offering water instead. She's just about sleeping through, one wake up for a quick drink. She definitely wasn't ready at 13months.