Does anyones 1yo+ DC feed to sleep AND sleep through AND go to bed happily for DH/others, without bf?

[brokenmummy]

Hi again

Bit of background - I have posted a couple of times here over the last few days as I've been doing a bit of cc at bedtime - quite a gentle version I think - and he already seems to be sleeping longer at night. He's gone from 3 to 1 night feed. he's 1 yo.

Until then he's always fed to sleep. But I am finding it so so hard to wake him after his bedtime bf. I don't really want to change the routine - I really love that last bf of the day, we both wind down and he goes straight into his bed, contented and warm and fuzzy. I don't want to lose that special time.

BUT I need him to go through the night for the sanity and happiness of our family.

I also need him to be able to be put to bed by other people. He's never been put to bed by anyone other than me. DH is always at work in the evenings so it's just never happened. But I would like to start going out a bit more, I have a couple of things planned, and I'd like DH and my mum to be able to put him to bed with minimal tears.

Is this possible? Or do I really need to break the feed to sleep at bedtime habit?

At the moment our bedtime routine is bath, cup of cows milk (recently introduced), pjs, book, feed, bed.

I sometimes give him the beaker of milk in the bath! is that ok?!

hope I'm not clutching at straws...

thanks

Hi there. My DD4 is 2. She is fed to sleep. When she was 15 months and I was 3 months pregnant, my DH decided that I needed to rest and do he would take over bedtime. She had only ever gone to sleep feeding until then and was feeding 3+ times during the night.
We started by me feeding her until just dozing off and gently putting her in bed then I'd sit and hold her hand until asleep. We gradually moved on to daddy doing the hand holding and then a feed a put to bed not dozing and so on. Within 3 months daddy was doing everything except the feed which I would do whilst he read her a story, and she was snow sleeping through. ( forgot to mention we also had daddy go to her in the night and he would bring her through if he couldn't settle her, over a few weeks she just got that daddy was coming and it was ok).
Now at 2 daddy does bedtime, I still feed her, but if I am busy with the baby and he is being particularly upset she will go to sleep without her feed. I am usually more upset than she is.
My relationship with her is still very strong, but her relationship with daddy is now amazing. Any night time problems and she calls for him.
I hope it works out for you but it's not a speedy fix.

To answer your questions - yes, yes and no!

He's 20mo, has slept through reliably since 15mo (unless poorly or teething, understandably). But I'm the only one who can put him to bed. Feeling like you do, like I'd like to be able to go out/join a class or something.

At the mo we're trying DH giving a cup of milk before I bf, hoping bf will get shorter and shorter but not sure if it'll work! DS is teething at the mo so being very clingy with me anyway.

We have a stage of separation between feed and bedtime - learned this this hard way with dc1.
So bath, feed on sofa downstairs / supper, upstairs on dc1's bed for stories and a little more milk if he wants (about half the time he does) then dh takes him into our room for an extra story on our bed (where he sleeps) plus a cuddle until asleep.
This means I can go out in the evening as long as I feed him after bath (sometimes we do an early bath to accommodate this) and DH can do stories etc
He doesn't sleep through though (but has reflux which still bothers him I believe at night). We are currently trying for DH to settle him for any wakings before 10.30pm (my bedtime) - slowly advanced from 9pm!
So, I can go out - but only between the hours of 7.30pm - 10.30 pm!
He is 21 months.

Sorry, that's not very clear - DC2 is the 21 month old the post is referring to, DC1 is his big brother!

Thanks for the responses so far.

I have introduced the cup of milk during/after bath with the intention of him getting him used to it and also filling him up a bit more! The bf has got shorter but I don't really want to move it and was just hoping that we could teach him that when mummy puts him to bed he gets a bf, and when daddy does bed he just gets a bigger cup of milk.

DH is not home from work til around 830 so he would only be doing bedtime at the weekends. I have a couple of really big days out planned in August which my mum is babysitting for so need to get him going to bed without me once in a while!

I feel torn - I love the bedtime bf more than anything and yet I want the freedom to go out once a month!

Why don't you try getting your mum or DH to put him to bed one night, and you walk around the block, phone in hand, that way you are close enough to avoid meltdown but not in the house...I swear they can 'smell' mummy milk through walls.

That's the plan for this weekend, stuffthenonsense. I've spent the week trying to get ds to go down awake in preparation for DH giving it a try this weekend. I've been using a gentle cc/gradual retreat and this evening it took 15 mins. So we'll see what happens.

otherwise I'm going to have to rethink and switch the routine around so bf doesn't come last... I shouldn't feel too sad, he's 1 and I hope to have more so it won't be the last of my bedtime feeds...

Hi brokenmummy, just wondered how you're getting on?

I've got a couple of nights away coming up early next month and wondering how I'm going to be able to manage it with just me being able to put DS to bed!

DH tried a couple of weeks ago - I went out and left them to it, but it got to 9pm and DH had to rock DS to sleep in the pushchair in the end. He then woke when he tried to put him in bed so I ended up settling him anyway!!

Yes and No
DD2 was fed to sleep until she was 3.6, she point blank refused to go to sleep for anyone else apart from 3 nights when I was in hospital having dd3. I stopped feeding her back to sleep at 18m as I was too uncomfortable feeding whilst pregnant, she took to that pretty well but still needed boobie before bed.
DD3 is still bfed at 23 months and she has been a lot easier, partly because dd2 was such a pain and I had to spend upto an hour settling her each night so dd3 often fell asleep on dp. Now she often falls asleep on dp whilst I do stories with dd2, still takes an hour, having dd3 has given dd2 some attachment and jealousy issues I think. She ususally slereps through and then has a mammoth feed about 6am

So in answer you can have others settle them but it can be pretty tough getting there. Good luck

Well, there has been some progree but only in one respect!

I decided to try waking him up after the feed then doing lite cc at ed time. He is v v stubborn! It's been 2 weeks, he now sleeps through the night (did so from day 1, didn't have to do cc in the night) but he sometimes still cries for up to 45 mins at bedtime. I think I have to cut out the bf for this to work, as he gets all sleepy then I wake him up he's bound to get angry!

And we still haven't tried anyone else putting him to bed. I'm too scared!

It's tough isn't it! When I committed to going away in August earlier in the year I assumed I'd be able to leave my 21mo DS by then!

He'll be staying with my parents who he sees every week (they look after him while I work) so he knows them and their house really well. They think it'll be fine...hmmm might have a trial run over the next couple of weeks!

Tbh if I wasn't going away I'd be happy to carry on as we are and just slowly encourage him to drop the final feed in his own time (with some gentle help!).

Good news on the sleeping through though brokenmummy :)