Anyone ever weaned a toddler while breastfeeding new baby?

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I need to do something. I thought tandem feeding would be lovely and it’s been a nightmare. My toddler is nearly 3 and baby is 4 months old and my toddler has calmed down with it but wakes super early for it, screams and disturbs my baby that actually sleeps well, won’t allow anyone else to settle her so I end up with both kids in the same room and they disturb each other. My baby used to take a bottle of expressed milk but now fusses and doesn’t take one so I have to do all her wakes (which isn’t many but more when my toddler wakes her by screaming for boob at the early hours then being up by half 4). If I’m in another room with baby then my toddler wakes more in the night and comes looking for me and I get even less sleep. I just don’t know what to do. Can I wean her while still feeding my baby or will it just be awful? What other sleeping arrangements can I try? I’m at the end of my tether.

I actually felt the same! I thought tandem feeding would be lovely with my 18 month old and newborn baby. In reality I struggled with it. I managed it for 6 months and ended up exhausted from it. My then 2 year old ramped it up, wanted boob all the time. Everytime my daughter was feeding, so would my toddler. I was exhausted. I actually remember crying during a routine visit from my health visitor that I just did not want to tandem feed anymore.

I felt like nothing worked at stopping my 2 year old. He would look for me in the night. Like clock work he would come into my room every night at 3am wanting boob.

In the end what worked for us was my husband keeping our toddler upstairs with him in bed, and me and my daughter sleeping downstairs. I remember feeling so upset and distraught hearing my toddler crying for me night after night but I knew we had to persevere. The first night he woke up looking for me and cried for 1.5 hours. That was hard. The second night he woke up and cried for 45 mins. Then the third night he woke up and was settled within 20 minutes. After that he didn't wake up anymore looking for boob. That was the nighttime done.

I also ensured during the daytime I did not breastfeed my DD in front of my toddler at all. Anytime she needed a feed, my husband distracted him. Anytime he asked for a feed I would distract him with something else. I was happily surprised it took about 2 weeks for the daytime feed requests to stop.

We are a year on from this now, and I can breastfeed my now 1 year old DD and he happily encourages her.

Thank you for your reply!! If anything it’s nice to know someone else felt the same. I see so many posts about people loving the tandem feeding experience and I feel awful that I’m not loving it. There have been nice moments sure but my older DD ramped up the feedings too which I tried to go with then just had to distract and explain why she couldn’t have as much. We got the daytimes down again after a few weeks and now she just has boob morning and bedtime but still wakes and asks for it. She was going all night without before baby arrived and sleeping better but now not so much. If she sleeps well then she’s up at half 4 every day asking for boob too. She screams bloody murder if dad tries to soothe her in the night and we struggle to persevere with it but that’s on us, it’ll be a struggle for any parent I’m sure! It’s good to know it was only for 3 nights with your LO though!