What did you do when your toddler stopped bf to sleep? I need to hear the voice of experience, please!

[BR44]

My DS is 18mo. He has always been fed to sleep. This has guaranteed me my peaceful evenings for the last 18 months and so I have conveniently ignored the little voice at the back of my head telling me 'This won't last. It can't last. And what exactly are you planning to do then, eh?'

To be honest, I expected the magic milk to lose its sleep-inducing power before now but it hasn't, so I have not bothered putting any alternative strategies in to practice. But over the last couple of nights it has taken me AGES to get him settled and I know it's the beginning of the end. I finally have to admit the need to teach him how to put himself to sleep. In a way I'm glad it's finally happened as I hope it will help him re-settle when he wakes in the night and it might mean that (previously unthinkable thought) I might get to miss the occasional bedtime and leave DP to it.

So, my question is - who has been through this and what worked for you? I've done my fair share of reading up on this but nothing is more valuable than the voice of experience, in my opinion. At the moment, when I put him down in his cot awake he immediately stands up, leans over the bars and wails until I pick him up. This does not bode well, I fear.

I'm not daft and I know that whatever I opt to do will involve a certain amount of crying, confusion and frustration (for all of us) but I would really like to hear from other MNs who have faced a similar situation and come out the other end. Please tell me that the hole I have dug for myself isn't so deep we'll never crawl out?!?

Ds - sung him to sleep over the course of several hours

Dd - she pushed me away and demanded to go in her cot where she ignored me and went to sleep.

Lying down next to him on the bed, then breathing heavily until he falls asleep?

We transitioned from bf to sleep, to bf lying on a bed with lullaby, then falling asleep next to us with lullaby, then doing the same on his mattress on the floor, then in his own bed with me sitting beside, now falling asleep in own bed - mostly, but not always on his own.

No Cry Sleep Solution for toddlers is the book to read.

Me, me! I've done this!!

DD was a bit younger - 16mo - when we did it. It wasn't half as hard as I thought it would be though. She didn't get KO'd by milk anymore and bedtime was becoming a real battle, so...

For a whole week DH did bedtimes, with a brand new routine. I stayed well out of the way and MNed sat on my hands.

New bedtime routine goes roughly: Bit of bedtime cbeebies, upstairs for PJs, brush teeth, two or three or seven stories, kiss, cuddle, in bed. You may want to choose some magic words that mean "it's time to shut up and sleep now". We chose 'night night, love you' - that's the last thing we say when we walk out of the door, every single time without fail.

For a few days she cried for about 10 mins (with DH going back in to sooth her, we didn't leave her alone to cry). Then she just got it. I think she just accepted that there was no more BF at bedtime. DH did 8 nights in a row, just to be sure, and we've taken it in turns ever since.

What I'm trying to say, in a very longwinded fashion, is: stick to your new routine as if it's a religion. And don't underestimate your DS, he might surprise you

Good luck

Dummy ( sorry) and rocking to sleep with a muslin that had been shoved down my front for hours. ( she was used to a dummy as she comfort fed when she felt like it...I felt guilty so used to feed her to sleep). At round 15 mths i stated feeding her earlier and the dummy and the muslin... We stopped at 19/20 mths

Bf that is ....we then stopped the rocking and placed in cot and she got used to it straight away. Dh wasn't round to help many nights....

Thank you all very much for your super-speedy responses!

Stetsons I want to be you. That's really quite impressive. Did you still BF her earlier in the evening as part of the routine or did you just stop? I am very very bad at sitting out while my DP takes charge with DS, but I know this is something I am going to have to work on as part of this big change.

Branchingout - your phasing out approach is what I think is most likely to happen with me, to be honest. And I have read NCSS!!

Thank you. Well, thank DD, she surprised me!

To start with I moved her bedtime feed to when we got in from work, so she was still having two feeds, but after Christmas I dropped that too. She was about 19mo then.

It helped that the first time she went to bed without any BF I was out late after work and missed bedtime. So in a way, that set the precedent for what happened a couple of weeks later and it wasn't a completely New Thing for her.

It also helped that she was reeeeally annoying me during the bedtime feed - pulling on and off, sticking her hands and feet up my nose, knees over my shoulders. You get the picture I knew I couldn't go back to that, so the new routine HAD to work!

Seriously though, let your DH do the first few. Make yourself leave the house if you need to (the supermarket is deserted at bedtime, if that gives you an excuse).

I'm afraid to say cc and I thought I'd be the last person in the world to do it, but nothing was working at any point of the day.

The first time was awful, he cried himself hoarse, but within three days he really had got it down to 1-2 minutes max. And half of the time he goes down with a smile now (two weeks later).
He's 16 months, and btw, I was still getting up or bringing him in with me for 2-4 feeds every night before I did it.
Tbh I think cc is more about training the parent to tolerate the crying rather than training the child. (I am partially joking).

Thanks Stetsons - we are not ready to drop the feed yet so I will bear that in mind. My DS son is also being seriously irritating during this feed...

stainesmassif - yours is the post I have been expecting/dreading. I have a nagging feeling that this is the route I will have to take. He IS ready to sleep on his own and he IS ready to do without milk/sleeping with me during the night, the real question is am I ready to deal with the short-term heartache required to get him there? Would you mind giving me some more detail on exactly what you did and how it worked?

We only dropped the feed because it suited us. My original bf plan was to stop at 2yo. We're 2 months off that now, and I'm not sure if I will drop her morning feed then or not. I suppose we'll see when we get there - just like changing her bedtime around.

You can only do what suits you and your family, and your circumstances. Remember that, and don't give yourself any sticks to beat yourself

We did our own version of CC at times in the lead up to this, which seemed more gentle to us, which meant we left her for one minute if she cried. It was probably counter-intuitive and kept her away from sleep longer overall, but it was what was right for us.

To answer the question in your OP, once you've identified a strategy that you can make work, there's no hole you can't crawl out of.

BR I know exactly how you feel - I started a v similar thread myself. Ds just started hating his cot and unless he was 100% asleep when he went in there would flip over, stand up and scream immediately. It was taking an hour to get him down some nights and then he'd wake at 10pm!

I just followed the cc advice on here, actually. Did his normal bedtime, bf, hug, 'it's bedtime, night night' down into cot and run away. And them kept going back at increasing intervals of 1,2,5,10,20,30 minutes. Thank god, we never made it to the thirty minute point.

Last night he slept from 7-5.30 which is incredible and I feel close to human again. It still took a couple of weeks further of waking in the night but he always went back down within 5 minutes and I did a few night feeds at first cause I thought he had a sore throat with all the yelling - but definitely an improvement to both our lives.
Cc definitely trains the parent to accept the crying (IMO, obvs) and I used the timer on my phone as it can seem like a minute is a very long time to start with.

Thank you so so much staines and stetsons for your encouragement. These boards are incredibly valuable for reminding you that, however much it seems to the contrary at 3am, countless parents have gone through what you are going through and have come out the other end with at least 98% of their sanity/goodwill in tact.

Last nights' loooong bedtime, nighttime wakings, cot rejection and on/off grazing in my bed from 4 am have done wonders to strengthen my resolve. DS has had a tummy bug this week but as soon as I am confident he's eating and drinking enough in the day then Operation Go To Sleep (Seriously) is on. I'm just so fed up of the current state of play that I think I'm finally ready to handle the crying and upset.

I will continue to post on this thread and will almost certainly be back to seek further advice, hope that's okay with you! In the meantime, I hope you both enjoy your sleep - you bloody well deserve it!!

Yes, that's exactly how I felt and posting on here helped a lot! Especially at 3am.

Consider the move to a bed - I found it really helpful, I think they begin hating the cot bars once they can stand up and move around.

My twins stopped reliant feeding to sleep at about 12 months, and bedtimes became a (very long) battle each night. Most nights the only went to sleep when DH came home and walked with them, which switched them off like a light.

They're now nearly 18 months old, and DH (it my mum) is still far quicker to put them to bed. Anyone other than me basically! If I am there, I feed them then hand over to DH/Mum (or battle on alone!), but if I'm not there, then since 12 months or so they have gone to bed for DH or my Mum without a breast feed.

I still feed them through the night, sometimes up to 4 times each! Though in the last month or so they've each slept through a couple of times (not the same nights though, sadly) so I'm hopeful that they'll start waking less often now. But again, if I'm not there, they'll settle for DH or my Mum without breastfeeding (they offer a sippy cup). If I try to not breastfeed in the night they just get upset and angry, which doesn't get anyone any sleep, so I just cosleep and feed when needed.

Before you resort to CC, would it be worth letting DH get on with it for an evening, preferably with you going out so there's no chance DS can pick up on the fact that you're there somewhere? You might be pleasantly suprised and it'd make you feel a whole lot less trapped if you knew it didn't have to be you that did bedtime?

Good luck!