Help needed cosleeping and breastfeeding drama

[MrJPurp]

Hi all,

I would appreciate some support and guidance to a difficult situation me (27m) and the other half (27f) have found ourselves in.

Bit of background, child (21 month f) has always been breastfed, she refused formula milk, puked it up for the first 2 weeks and refused bottle feed to the point of starving herself. We had a very traumatic cluster feeding stage straight after birth with almost 96 hours of little to no sleep. Daughter refused to settle in a Moses basket, we tried for roughly for 2-3 months with advice from health visitors and GP however, she would nap for about 20 minutes to 2 hours before waking for an hour or more (normally the entire night) screaming and intermittent sleeping . Nighttime Sleep has always been a battle I don't think we have ever had a nighttime where sleep was easy coming. My wife gave up trying to settle in the cot / Moses basket after 5 months of little to no sleep (talking maybe 3 hours of sleep in total throughout the night again we tried many different approaches with 2 week intervals to see if they stuck but had no luck) eventually she tried co sleeping predominantly this was done on the sofa down stairs and continued up until she needed to return from maternity leave, roughly 9 months or so after birth at which point I set her up in the spare room on a mattress (her decision)

Due to breastfeeding daughter didn't take too well to foods, even now with no breastfeeding other than at night. She has a limited diet beans, spaghetti, pasta, pouches, yoghurts she will eat any junk food as it comes but spits out pretty much any other food and picks at our tea (professionals chalk it up to constant teething / food intolerances in my family, my mother for example has gastro problems rashes and allergies from tomato, potato, peppers, several food chemicals, grain daughter has reactions to tomato products but I am still trying to figure out if it is the tomato or potassium sorbate ) we have fought through these struggles we are currently at a new milestone, we have reduced breastfeeding down to nighttime only ( for the last 2 months or so) wife has continued to co sleep however last week we set up the cot in the other room with only one side on it as daughter hates being contained cot, travel cot, pram, car seat, won't be in a highchair, hated swaddles won't even be hugged for more than 5 seconds or so again to the point of hours and I mean hours of screaming, throwing up and throwing tantrums, we have tried several methods to support her with this ( we tried intermittent come in and soothe but the moment we walk out she will go off again, we tried the settle to sleep and then put in to cot however the moment she notices she is being moved in any direction she wakes up and screams, we tried the cry it out method with advice from the health visitor but this lead to nothing but sickness and anxiety.

As is said we have gotten a consistent bedtime routine, I take her up around 7:45 pm I get her bathed dressed little kiss hug and then wife comes in and breastfeeds her to sleep, I have done 3 nights of trying to get her to sleep on my own with success on 2 but these were also days where she refused to have a nap. She will wake roughly around midnight and will not sleep again unless wife comes in the room, if breast is refused she will not sleep.i have set up a mattress in the room so wife can sleep in there with the intent of slowly moving further and further away we are on week 2

We are at a point where wife no longer feels she can breastfeed it has taken a toll on her both physically and emotionally, I feel like the stories from friends and family members are not in the same vein as what we have experienced, I have a child (11 f) from a previous relationship and the experiences have been worlds apart.

I feel we have gotten ourselves into a trap and any action we take that is not the status quo will be a slog and potentially damaging to our daughter more importantly i don't know what the right choice is! I don't want to make a change that will just lead us back to a position and regress the progress we have fought desperately to make.

When she is sleeping she wakes inconsistently and will proceed to randomly cry for about an hour and a half, we do everything (nappy, drink, medicine if needed, change position, soothe, breastfeed) and sometimes it won't help she will cry and then just randomly stop and go back to sleep after several hours or until I come in and take her to sleep with me (again inconsistent on whether this works)

I do not believe she can self soothe and I do not know how to support her with this, we have always reliedon bum tapping, face stroking to get her to sleep otherwise we have have a child that will not sleep or has not slept for 24 hours, crashed and made our lives living hell for a week straight.

Please has anyone had this nightmare experience and able to give advice?, I can honestly say she is a wonderful girl, she has high praise from her child carers, she goes to my sister's on a Friday I have her on my own on a Saturday, she is so intelligent, so inquisitive she is a pleasure when she is happy but a terror when she is unhappy.

Our goal is to have her in her own bed, self soothing and off the breast by may when she turns 2 but we are open to go for longer I just want to be making progress and will do whatever it takes to achieve the results we all need any helpful advice would be amazing, please and thank you.

Wow. That's a long one.

TLDR: your wife wants to stop BF which is now overnight only
...is that the jist?

Will child sleep with you? It'd be easier for you to help wean because if breasts are there it is harder to not feed!
They are old enough to understand No. I'd tell my LO that Boobies are sleeping. Reduce gradually to avoid breast discomfort.

Expect some criticism here. Some of your comments are ignorant or unwise. By your language, you are obviously not a Mumsnet user so I suggest you take advice where it's constructive and don't get drawn into arguments.

2 is still very young. You may not get your daughter to be off breastfeeds and sleeping alone by 2. You could work on getting nights a little better.
For example it maybe you get to the point she wake and come into you? Would that work?

The best advice I have is get a copy of the book No Cry Sleep Solution. Loads of information and heaps of suggestions. You read it and then as a couple make decisions about how work on sleep together.

The best thing we did was get rid of the cot and we bought a double mattress for the nursery. My 18 month old sleeps in there now and if she wakes/needs re-settling one of us goes in there with her. She hated her cot and it wasn't worth the battle. She's much happier in a big bed. No advice on the breastfeeding as my baby stopped ok but we introduced a comforter which helped. Would your baby settle if it was just you there in the night?

Another note for the No Cry Sleep Solution. You need the toddler & preschooler version, here.

I'd also read up on gentle night weaning.

Thank you for the advice, pretty much the jist, yeah.

I think it's best I bite the bullet and take on the responsibility myself.

On a side note, apologies to anybody and anyone that does take offence, I have asperger's i am very "black and white" and "matter of fact" obviously parenting does not in any way fit into my normal scope / frame of reference and i am out of my comfort zone with it all, though I am persevering to ensure that my wife and daughter are able to excel despite my shortfalls / limitations. I am aware that when communicating my issues / problems i am facing it can come across as 'ignorant' or 'unwise' but again I don't think the same way as many others so apologies in advance. I am desperate to learn anything that can help my family hence putting my request out on an unfamiliar platform with experienced people who can share their thoughts and opinions with me.

Good advice, I will purchase the book and read it. It is probably best for me to take ownership of the initial settling in the evening to give my daughter the opportunity to understand that things are changing and hope to give her some more independence. I understand that our goals and reality may not align and not to be dead set on the age 2 no breast no co sleep. Thank you, when you mention it is still a bit too young do you have experience similar and if so roughly what age were you able to have your child off breast and in their own bed (asking for a point of reference) again i don't want to rush or escalate / regress the situation if it won't be helpful

Thank you for sharing. She seems to do well with the routine, I believe that she has learned to quite enjoy our little night time routine. As other posters have mentioned it seems that if I take ownership of the initial settling it will lead to a more favourable outcome for all of us and hopefully help her to self soothe and settle.i will look into purchasing a comforter (any recommendations)? We have a king sized mattress in there anyway so I may just leave her in it, given she never settled in a cot it may just be easier to give her all the space she is accustomed to and that way increase the chances of her sleeping independently. I believe that if wife knows that she is not needed to stay in there all night every night it will help with her emotional fatigue and allow her to feel she can continue to breast feed whilst daughter settles in her new routine.

Your DD sounds a lot like mine at that age. I used BF whenever needed, day and night, as it was the only thing that soothed her. For many years. Food was an issue (still is, she's 13 now), self-settling wasn't something she could do (still struggles a little now), the normal toddler meltdowns continued for many years and it was very difficult to calm her. Hence the continued reliance on BF.

My DD is autistic. I am autistic. You've mentioned that you are autistic... so I'd say it's highly likely that your daughter is also autistic. This would explain all of her 'high need baby' characteristics and challenges.

Unfortunately the only solution I ever found was to just keep meeting DD's needs (and empathetically offering comfort when I had to say no to her 'wants' while always meeting her true needs). The ways in which I've met her needs have changed a lot over the years, as you might expect. But I had to completely let go of the idea of age-typical expectations/milestones and respond to the child I actually had, not the one in the parenting books.

Not sure if that's any help really, but perhaps food for thought going forward.

Thank you, purchased book and will read article with wife.

Some babies are just really bad sleepers, you have my sympathy OP.

If your wife/partner wants to stop BF, and I understand why, I think you will have to do the night wakings yourself. I suggest you take a week off work to dedicate to this and co-sleep yourself with the LO (as safely as possible) for the time being.

just because it was different with your older child doesn't mean you can get this one to behave the same. I have 3 kids and they were all totally different.

It was really hard to get my youngest to stop BF at about 18 months. and she co-slept with me for years after that. She's fine now. I'm not saying it's easy but I just want to point out that kids like this do exist and it's not a parenting failure.

PS we also gave up on the cot as DD hated it and went for the mattress on the floor option, worked really well for us.

Sounds like my son. TBH, I stopped trying to force anything - we co-slept from 2 months (I was dead on my feet at that point) until he was about 2, then he slept in a little bed next to us and would climb in bed next to me at some point in the night for a feed and just stay there. By 3 he was down to morning feeds only, and staying the whole night in his little side bed (I would sit in the room in the dark totally still and silent for about 45 mins to get him to sleep), and then at about 3.5 a switch flipped, and he happily went to bed, and slept through to morning (albeit a permanent early riser).

Food-wise, it turns out he's dyspraxic, so he just found eating tiring - so I fed him for a lot longer than other kids, cut up his food for years because he found it so hard, snacks were ones he could pick up with his fingers because he didn't have the co-ordination for cutlery (chunks of melon etc). He needed the milk to keep him going. He'd wake in the night hungry when he was a toddler, so we took to keeping a banana on the bedside table to see him through the night.

Any time I tried to force anything it just caused stress and upset, so I took the easy path and I've had no issues with him now he's older - he's the easiest child, no fighting bedtime, eats anything etc.

Next child was the complete opposite, so I don't think it was me, I think it's just different kids are different.

Thank you very much for sharing your experience. It has been easy for me to look at where she should be (according to the professionals ie. Age milestones etc.) and get frustrated / worried that she is not meeting the targets I am still on the path of letting go of this.

I have what we want eg. No breast feeding, no co sleeping and trying to find a solution that meets her wants / needs (which though she can't communicate like you or I she is very expressive) the factors I am missing are the realistic experience of others on what to expect on this journey and what they have found to be turning points where they have had successes / failures achieving the above. If you don't mind would you be willing to share what age your child was when you were able to get them to stop breastfeeding / co sleeping and what that looked like.

I suspect (and so does wife) that it is highly likely she may also have autism/asperger's though we are being careful not to view our challenges solely through this lense at the moment and being careful to consider other reasons why she may be exhibiting certain behaviours.

I am not too fussed on the food element, give the history of intolerances in the family I know it will be an uphill battle ( I am too stubborn to admit that I have probably got similar intolerances as my mother and sister) we are taking the long road to identify new foods she can have and falling back on those we know she will so she doesn't starve 🤦🏼‍♂️ I am hoping to find at least one meal that she will enjoy that she will eat consistently that is healthy but beans, yoghurt and chicken are not it!

Thank you again, I am trying to be as malleable as possible to fit around her needs whilst trying to enjoy the parenting journey.

What does self settling look like for your child? Any advice on how to support my daughter, i don't want her to be in a position where she needs to rely on others, if it is a want rather than a need then I will know that if and when she wants she can self settle and that will make it easier in accepting that I am not putting her at a disadvantage and potentially creating a problem for her long term

Thank you for the reassurance, I don't mind the cosleeping side as much, if I need to do it myself then so be it I find it lovely to fall asleep next to her, she is very cute.

From what the wife is saying the BF is the main issue due to the pain in her back and the emotional fatigue.

If the wife did choose to continue the co sleeping do you have any advice on how she can deny the BF and manage the subsequent meltdown behaviours from the little one (I think it is best I do the sleep, however I want advice so we have covered all bases)

Amazing thank you.

I didn't know dyspraxia could affect a child like that.

See image for a list of my own diagnosed boons, so if she has inherited some of my traits this could be one of the factors she is struggling with meals. Did you take any advice from anyone on how best to support your child, or was it trial and error mainly?

Thank you for the sleeping advice when you mention morning feeds does that mean morning as in when up and ready to start the day or early morning or. The early hours 2am 3am ish?

Thank you for the reassurance

2-3am when 18months, as well as a bedtime feed, and then 6amish feed, but that slowly reduced and by 3 he'd wake up between 5 and 6, and come for just that first feed of the day. I really think it was just hunger, and getting enough into him to keep him going for long enough (hence the midnight banana).

Dyspraxia is a weird one (although, we laugh that as things go, at least it's an issue with simple work-arounds) - muscle tone and co-ordination are the biggies for him - so for example he couldn't figure out how to get food on a spoon, and then into his mouth with the food still on - he kept turning the spoon over on the way up. Another thing I've noticed that he did, and still does which I've heard from other people with dyspraxia, is over-stuff his mouth (since getting food in there is so challenging), and then slowly kinda work his way through it (occasionally pushing it back in with a finger!). When he was a toddler, we'd find him still with food packed into the roof of his mouth because he didn't have the dexterity get it down. He also doesn't know he's in pain/hot/cold/hungry/over-done it until it's really strong - often gone a bit too far eg. giving himself a headache from over-exertion when swimming, or his lips turning blue because he's wandering around in his pants.

TBH I didn't realise there was anything particularly wrong (just thought it were his quirks) until his brother came along and I saw quite how different he was - how it was night and day with things like dressing and feeding himself. That was when I approached professionals and got him some OT for a few years when he was about 5 which made a massive difference (although he still needs accommodations at school, they're mainly just things like slip on-shoes and being allowed to type)

@MrJPurp Your daughter sounds quite similar to my son (20mo)!

I think you doing the bedtime routine and helping your DD to fall asleep at night is a great start - she can fall asleep without your wife / breastfeeding and every day that she falls asleep next to you is a bit more practice at sleeping without mum/milk.

I also really got from your post that your wife is done with breastfeeding and wants to stop. I think it's really important to respect that - breastfeeding is a relationship between her and your DD. If it's not working for her any more, it is absolutely appropriate for her to stop, even if it's not what your DD wants.

We have been going through some similar difficulties with breastfeeding and night wakes. I made a stressed thread about DS's eating and breastfeeding a few weeks ago!

Since then we have night weaned. My DH now does bedtime and any night wakes (without milk). DS is sleeping in a toddler bed and DH on a sofa bed in the same room. The first night DS was upset for about 40 minutes the first time he woke, because there was no milk. He then woke up 4 more times in the night wanting milk, but fell asleep again after about 10-15 minutes. The next 2 nights he slept through. Since then we've had some nights sleeping through and some nights with 1-3 wakes, but DH has been able to help him go back to sleep. It's made a big difference to my mental health already.

In the next few weeks we want to transition to having DS sleeping on his once he's asleep, with either of us able to do the bedtime routine and resettle at night without milk, but we're giving it a bit of time to establish the new milkless normal first.

Something that helped us know it was time to night wean (apart from me being really done with night feeds) was that DS has started having (protracted) tantrums about other stuff during the day. We could see that he was able to get through those without breastfeeding, and that the type of upset/anger he showed if I refused milk was similar to other situations where I said no to something. So managing his upset about no milk at night felt similar to handling a tantrum at other times in the day (being there, soothing if possible but not giving in).

So on the cosleeping/breastfeeding, I can tell you our story but I think that the key thing here is that your wife wishes to stop breastfeeding completely (totally valid!) and neither of you want to cosleep in the long term. Which is also absolutely fine if it's done gently and respectfully, much as @FrizzledFrazzle describes. You being the person to sleep with and resettle your DD during night wakings will be crucial to this, I think. If your DD can smell her mum and the milk, she will ask (scream loudly!) for it much more.

In our case, BF didn't really bother me so I was happy to continue as long as DD found it helpful. I found that by BF and cosleeping I naturally fell into sync with DD in terms of sleep cycles, so we'd both stir in the night at the same time. I'd give her a boob without fully waking, she'd latch on without fully waking, we'd both go back to sleep. This worked for many years but by six years old (yes, I realise this is a bit shocking!) I stopped being able to sleep while BF so I night weaned her. This was very straightforward and we kept feeding to sleep and cosleeping, but of course it was mostly straightforward because of her age and understanding rather than anything I particularly did. I honestly can't remember when she finally weaned from BF completely, it was a good year or two later, but it was so gradual that neither of us really noticed. Just one day I realised she hadn't asked for milk for a long time. And she never asked again. It was also around the time she had largely stopped having meltdowns that needed soothing. (Since then, she generally goes into shutdown - which is outwardly calmer and quieter - instead.)

Things were also different for us in that, although my husband slept in the same bed/room as us, due to his own disabilities he wasn't able to cope with taking on the role that you are suggesting i.e. providing the night-time care for DD. So again, continuing to BF and cosleep worked better for our family.

Again this won't give you much hope! But at the age of 13 my DD still cosleeps with me for part of the night. She doesn't need to do this if she has a friend sleeping in her room, but if alone she comes to fetch me in the night and I join her in her bed until I get up in the morning. These days I go to bed much earlier than she does! So she gets herself ready for bed independently, chills out in bed to get sleepy, then nips through to fetch me. I expect this to change in the next few months, as she will be getting an assistance dog and one of the specific tasks the dog will be trained to do is provide comfort and companionship in the night. DD is a bit embarrassed that she needs me with her to get to sleep and is very keen on having her dog perform this role instead!

Re eating, you mention intolerances - I'm not sure if this is allergy-related? For us there are no known allergies, but I'm pretty sure my daughter would meet the criteria for ARFID (a type of eating disorder common in autistic people) and I was exactly the same myself as a child. I relied entirely on a small number of 'safe foods' as a child and my DD is very similar. For the first few years, this included my milk and to be honest I'm glad I could offer that during illness (she has always flat out refused any medication) and during times of high anxiety around food and trying new foods.

Finally you ask about self-settling: this isn't something my DD was ever able to do when very young. She has always needed co-regulation from a trusted adult, usually myself, when experiencing anxiety/meltdowns and in order to settle to sleep. Her ability to self-regulate has improved consistently over the years though, and in terms of sleep she just needs another 'body' in the room really! Personally I think 'self-settling' as an active, teachable skills for very young children is a load of rubbish. They just get used to being left alone in the night, as I was myself. Many babies/toddlers are relatively unbothered by this and accept it without much fuss. A significant minority do not! My DD is one of them and I do not regret meeting her needs for all those years, and continuing to do so even now. She is turning into a wonderful, mature, empathetic young woman who is surprisingly independent in many ways, despite her significant challenges.

My five year old comes into bed with us every few nights. My nine year old maybe once every 6 months. All the kids get in bed on a Sunday morning. I stopped breastfeeding them all aged between 3-4.

Before you had mentioned that you are autistic, this post was shouting "possible ND child" to me.
The issues around food, strong emotional responses to change, dependence on reliable cues etc are very common in children who later receive a diagnosis.

With the knowledge that one parent is ND, that makes it more likely.

Breastfeeding is often a strong regulation tool for these children, and they can be harder to wean from the breast because they rely on it for regulation. So it's not a problem caused by BF, but that BF is a tool they use. (I'd say the same with food: BF is mitigating the limited range of foods they eat by providing nutrition, not causing the limited range)
There's a FB group here that you can find support around feeding and stopping feeding:

www.facebook.com/groups/1528426334368681/permalink/1530470400830941/

One of mine was very similar, and it just took longer to wean than it did for their siblings - we needed to find other ways to support self regulation before they were able to calm.

Sounds a bit like my eldest (who is now almost ten and not still sleeping with me!)

Giving up breastfeeding helped when she was about 2.5. I couldn't be anywhere near her though; I slept in the loft (which had an en suite) and husband pretended I wasn't in. She kicked off the first couple of hours that night sleeping in with him, but when she realised I was "out" and not coming back she got over it. We did this for three nights, on the third night she went to bed for husband no problem, settled and slept though.

There's too much going on- bad habits set that now need unpicking- the question is which one to unpick first so choose your battle wisely. I'm not having a pop - I've been there with no1 and learnt the hard way.

-Firstly sleep times. 7.45am to me sound late for a 2 Yr old. I have always started to wind the household down at 6pm and 7pm light out. If your too late this affects their sleep windows and results in an overtired child who will just not settle. They may look not tired but if your day is going to some kind of schedule she will be tired by this point.

• get the daytime naps on time too- has she dropped to just one now? Look at this because if she's missing out on sleep in the day it affects your whole nighttime drama going on.
• rule out reflux, silent reflux , gas, all the usual ones in the books. Because then she may need medication
• until all the day time stuff is sorted maybe keep co sleeping. Could you set a few days where you co sleep and wife comes in every few hours to feed , gradually making the bf streches as long as you can over the days. Then do the whole cot on her own thing. I think there's too much your trying to do at one, stop bf plus stop co sleeping plus new bed. It's all too much on top of the daytime drama.
• lastly easier said than done but when unpicking those habits be firm. Ayatt in the daytime setting boundaries she will statt to understand no means no. Then translate this to those night time battles.

Good luck

Thank you very much everyone for sharing your experiences, I really appreciate the advice and will need time to digest and research. I am pleased to see that I am not in this position alone.

Thank you for being an understanding community. I wish you all luck in raising and managing your own households!

If you have any other advice or experiences to share I will gladly read them. Everyday is a learning day.

Personal experience- my fatigue with the kids is not down to breastfeeding.

I just need a break. A chance not to be touched or grabbed for ten minutes.
To feel like I have "time off" not a "rollover" where chores keep till tomorrow.

I'm at home with baby, and that seems to be a green light for husband to leave me most chores (..he has always been lazy and oblivious TBF).
If he took his own cup away, occasionally helped with the washing, took the kids out for me to have the house to myself to catch up with tasks I can't do without them there, or plain old decompresses... Small things makes a huge difference. Especially when I've been woken several times a night and take the household mental load too.

Make sure you do your share and give your wife a break. Things like that help save the energy for dealing with kids and coping overnight.