13 months waking several times and feeding back to sleep

[orzo15]

If this was your baby how did this change? We co sleep because he wakes up far too often for me to get up each time. He will go to sleep and basically always wake up 40 minutes later, regardless of when he goes to bed or when his last nap was. So then I have to feed him back to sleep and this happens multiple times over night. He screams if I don’t give him the boob, arching his back and gets hysterical. It’s making me feel touched out and I’d like to stop but also can’t face the thought of him waking 5-6 times a night and screaming and taking ages to get back to sleep. How did this change if your baby was similar?

You wait it out or, if you are confident he's not teething, send your DH in to comfort him with a sippy cup of water. Some hard nights but he'll learn not to use you as a dummy and that it's not worth waking up.

At this age he should be having 3 meals a day and at least one snack, he doesn't need milk overnight.

i had a similar experience with DD1, I don’t know what it is about 13-14-15 months but I found the night feeding ramped up. We coslept as well. I found by around 18 months the waking significantly reduced, I’m quite sure she was only waking once a night by then. I ended up not night weaning her until she was just turned 2 and it was very easy, I essentially asked her and she agreed to what I proposed. I remember I also read her this really sweet book called something like “milky when the sun shines”. It was very easy. I kept putting it off so long because I didn’t want to upset her and it ended up working out perfectly.

if you want to night wean Sarah Ockwell Smith has some helpful advice and James McKenna. I could never be bothered I just kept on going. It’s so much easier when they understand a little though so I really recommend waiting until 18 months.

sending you sleep vibes, you’ll get through this and it’ll be a long distant memory!

I moved both of mine into their own rooms at this age mainly for this reason and they both woke significantly less.

DC 2 went from feeding on and off all night to waking once or twice.

Thank you all. Should have said I’m a single parent so no one to send in to deal with it! Half of me thinks 18 months doesn’t sound long away half of me does

I night weaned at around 17 months, he moaned and cried to be fed at first. But the wake ups reduced almost instantly, and by the third or fourth night it was down to one wake up. Didn’t bother having DH take the night wake ups, so you can deffo do on your own!

We’re still on one wake up and he comes in the bed then, and he’ll either have a feed if it past 04:30 or so, or I’ll try and resettle him. And on the rare occasion where he wakes up before midnight, then he normally just falls back asleep as soon as I pick him up.

It’s infinitely better than it was!! He was waking after about an hour some nights, now I can get about six or seven hours straight sleep which is amazing! I was very nervous about it but I just got to a point where he had to just adjust and I felt that at 17 months he was big enough to deal with it, and he did!

Good luck!

This is helpful thank you! I think he’s teething right now so I’ll wait until that’s past for now then try it

The problem is they’re always teething or sick ime!
I spoke to a lactation consultant who said it is possible that they do actually still need an overnight feed..but maybe not 5 or 6 feeds.

fwiw I don’t think they’re using you as a dummy , dummy’s are in fact mimicking you, if anything they’re doing what they’re meant to and that’s being near you for food comfort warmth and physical and emotional security, they’re still only little at that age! Obviously that doesn’t help the exhaustion but I think sometimes other people can tell us we’re spoiling them or letting them take advantage or whatever, and I just don’t view it that way.

I offer a feed every few hours but if she fed 40 mins ago I wouldn’t feed again, I’d rock her instead or rub her back which is a pain really, but I think is helping slowly. If she can be soothed in 5mins I know she was just fussing but If not then I offer a feed.

My daughter had a reflux flare up at that age and caused her to wake frequently for milk.