help need to start sleep training 15month ld

[donnacb]

ok history. had my ds 2 months early. hes had bad reflux that required medication. Since starting nursery has had one bad infection afterv another. he is allergic to cows milk so weight gain is poor. At 8 months nearly got him sleeping through the night but due to poor weight gain told to continue feeding at night (breast) he s now nearly 15 months been told to stop feeding as making no difference. so I am now left with a baby that happily wakes once or twice in a night for a 10 min breast feed and go back to sleep. how do i get him out of this??? I am a wimp cant cope with him crying for hours. If dh goes in hes has a hissy fit of mega proportions. so please tell me pitfalls techniques etc that youve tried and tested. so we can start as we mean t go on.

thanks everyone in advance. not looking foreward to this at all.

If you feel uncomfortable, don't do it. The problem with any form of sleep 'training' is that you're back at square one after illness, teething etc. Given your wee lad's medical history, he's probably had enough.

but how can we get him to sleep through. im knackered.

have they suggested any other ways of increasing his weight gain?

if he really isn't gaining wlel then tbh i would want to give him as much breastmilk as poss... even if that means night feeds...

if you really, really want to stop them though, can you try just giving him 5 mins each time? and gradually limit it until he has nothing? will he have a dummy/bottle?

BF babies still need 1 or 2 feeds until they are approx 1 year old - I guess, as he was prem, your DS will continue beyond that for a while. Given his rate of infections, the immune component of your milk is impt for him too.

I sympathise. DS is 16mo and wakes every couple of hours during the night, but I just won't do sleep training. We have him in bed with us as it's much easier for me ( our bed is huge thankfully). I only started doing this whe he was about 15mo - his sleep completely went to pot when he started to walk.

Your DS is up twice a night - perhaps the Pantley Pull Off method might work? You latch him on, let the milk let down then remove boob. he protests, you relatch for 10-60 secs then remove. repeat, repeat until he falls asleep. As he falls asleep, pat his shoulder or soemthing. You're probably getting the picture - you work at it until all you have to do is pat him on the shoulder when he wakes. But it takes a loooong time.

CC might work in 3 nights. However, there are a number of infants for whom it just doesn't work (my niece was one of them) and it can create terribel cot phobia and separation anxiety.

If he is over a year - can you give him warm goat's milk as a last feed at say 10pm? (I don't know if it's safe for him, given his problems).

Poor u donnacb. My DS1 had severe reflux that needed medication and was also dairy intolerant so I do symphatise greatly. CC crying did work for him though but you have to feel strong enough to do it. If you don't feel up to it, don't even go there. CC did not work at all for my DD.

Can you speak to doctor about getting him put on special milk ( could say you now want to give up bf) and give him that at night and see if that settles him better. Is he eating enough solids in the day? Don't know what else to suggest really if you don't feel up to sleep training - although there are other methods other than cc that are a bit kinder.

how was it last night donna?

hi everyone sorry only just managed to get back n the cmputer. It was god last night just up once. typical but may be he new i was writing about him. The problem i have as needing him to sleep through is that im a nurse and wrk are good at the mo but i have to go back to doing night duty again. argh otherwise not a problem like yu say 20 min disturbance twice a night nt too bad. but need to try. He is being trialed on pepti but wont take it. likes rice milk but has no calorific or health benefits for him at all. dietician suggests not to use goats milk as proteins are similar to cws milk. he is also having duocal (fat powder added to his food) but still small weight gain. tried cc sort of last night left him for five mins then 10 but still fed him dont think thats the way to go. hopefully i need to decide what to do its hard. just feel guilty im stressing fr no reason. well will try and email. n people have it much worse but if i can start off right and avoid pitfalls others might have found thats good cheers donna