Longterm(ish) BFers/co-sleepers: when and how did you get your baby nightweaned, into cot/bed and sleeping through?

[2ndDestiny]

Sorry if this has been covered before. My DS is almost 15mo, always been a terrible sleeper, have co-slept since he was 4 months which saved my sanity. He does usually go to sleep OFF the boob at bedtime, but is not good at self-settling (we cuddle/rock/sing). DH now fed up of being kicked in the ribs all night and wants him in his cot in his own room. I would also sort of like our bed back to ourselves again but infinitely prefer co-sleeping to getting up to re-settle DS multiple times in the night. We had some success at getting him to sleep in his cot in the run up to Xmas (he has always done naps and first 'shift' of the night in his cot) but gettingup to BF him took me back to newborn-stage levels of exhaustion and when we tried to nightwean (comforting and cuddling back to sleep instead of feeding, which sometimes took an hour - and then he would wake again 10 mins later) we were thwarted by a tummy bug and now a hideous cough/cold. So now he's mostly back in with us and the thought of starting from square one fills me with dread.

So I would like to hear from parents who were in this or similar situation at 15mo or older - when did your DC a) nightwean? b) go into own bed/cot? c) sleep through? And did you do anything to get them to do so?

Thanks in advance

[whispers in case he hears me] Things have been a bit better here, but only because we now move him to our bed and re-settle him on that with masses of cushions around him which seems to fool him into thinking we're there! Not ideal but hey, I've managed to have a few Crimble drinkies! (he decided to stop BFing a few months back)

Hope we all have good nights tonight!

How are things 2nddestiny and first timer?

I'm trying to do the jay Gordon night weaning with a bit of success. Main problem is I keep falling asleep myself instead of detaching ds and letting him sleep without bf. have done 2 nights of no feeds after midnight and the first night we were up for the day at 4.45. A bit better last night. Less crying and I think he is understanding a bit now 20 months nearly. But it is harder than just bf in my sleep. I'm trying to look long term!

my ds self-weaned at about 19m. He had been an awful night-feeder - still 2hrly at that stage iirc (which I may not, as many of my brain cells have melted). The only reason he self-weaned was that I hit the 2nd trimester of another pg and my milk must have changed. We put him in his own bed at 21m, having co-slept til then, and he took to it like the proverbial duck, except that he could never ever be put down awake. He STILL cannot get himself off to sleep, at 4.9yo. Zeesh.

my dd is now 32m and STILL night-feeding . For a while I had got her sleeping til 4am, but recently this is slipping backwards - last night she wanted to bf 4 times . I think this is due to teething as she's cutting her last two molars and they look very sore. Nevertheless I'm pretty fed up with that but struggling to face the squealing tantrums and long periods of grunty, impatient rummaging in my cleavage for any last vestige of comfort she can get short of an actual nipple. Whenever she's presented with the idea of sleeping on her own she assures me she is "too little" but I am going to give it a try soon - we will be doing up her bedroom and part of that will be to fold the bed from a king size down to a king-single: a big-girl bed! Wish me luck...

Some success, not feeding midnight to 6am and less wakings. But now he is ill with a fever and I've had to go into work last 2 days so he wants milk all night again!

Hi weasle
Just noticed you have resurrected this thread, haven't checked for a while. Well done getting your DS to go 12-6am using JayGordon. Sounds promising. Hopefully you'll get back on track when the fever passes. We have also had - dare I say it out loud? - quite a significant improvement so thought I'd share for anyone still watching the thread.

I decided he had to go down awake in his cot but didn't have the heart to do full on CC. As soon as he was well I started to put him down sleepy-but-not-asleep. Of course he got up and started to cry. So i gave him a cuddle without picking him up and gently laid him back down. Night 1 took half an hour and I laid him back somewhere between 30 and 60 times, I would guess. Busted my back. Eventually he went to sleep with me shushing-patting/stroking his back. He did cry, and was quite cross, but for me this felt a lot gentler than leaving him alone crying (which I can't bear). I did the same thing every time he woke: no picking up, cuddle over the side of the cot and gently lay back down. Nights 1-3 I also let him have 1 feed at around 11/12ish which was his usual first feed of the night. From night 4 we dropped the feeds altogether. I decided to be really consistent and within a couple of days I only had to lay him back down once, if at all, at bedtime.

It's been 2 weeks now. The first couple of nights I didn't sleep much but after that the night wakings greatly reduced and he started to settle himself a lot more. However, he still doesn't sleep through. He still wakes fairly predictably at about 3am, and, until last night, would protest for about 5 minutes before accepting a drink of water and a hug, but then lie himself back down and settle fairly quickly (most of the time). Some nights he has been waking at 5ish as well and DH settles him, and we still have the odd evening wake up. I was sure we were going to have a big wobble when he got a cold at the weekend - he did wake up more but we haven't reverted back to cosleeping/feeding to sleep.

Last night for the first time he woke up and didn't cry. I only woke up when I heard him rattling his beaker (at 3am) to try to get it through the bars of the cot. He was trying to help himself to a drink of water, bless! I gave him his drink and he lay back down and sang himself to sleep while I patted his back. I'm still exhausted (not really caught up with the year and a half of lost sleep) but this is such a massive improvement for us - I'm terrified that it will all go to pot now I've written it down in black and white!

The only drawbacks are that he wakes earlier in the morning now (6 instead of 7 ish) for his BF, and that at some point I guess we'll have to wean him off the patting back to sleep but that feels like a small step compared with him being latched on and clambering all over me all night. Now I'm just dreading the 18mo sleep regression, which I've heard Bad Things about on here, but I guess we'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it. :)

Glad to hear things have improved 2ndDestiny - well done you!

Things are pretty much the same here, still settling into cot, moving in with us at some point early evening but then generally sleeping pretty well til morning - usually sleeps til about 8, some days we have to wake him at 8.30! I'm thinking about taking the side bars of his cot though to see if that helps him stay in his cot for longer - anyone else done this at this age? (he's 15mo)