What order would you suggest tackling moving DS out of our room/self settling/stopping night time feeds?

[nello]

DS is 8 months old. He used to be a good sleep, with use one wake a night from about 6 weeks until 4 months and then things have got a little worse. Now he wakes between 2-4 times a night and starts the day at 5.30. I do feed him each time he wakes, to get him back to sleep easily, and at bedtime I normally put him down after a feed, sleepy but awake and tap his bottom (quite firmly) to get him off to sleep.

I want to try and help the sleep situation, and over the 2-3 months, I want to move him into his own bedroom, stop night time feeds and help him to self settle (thinking gradual retreat type training).

My question is which to do first?! If I move him into his own room before dropping feeds then I could be up and down all night, or I could move into his room too? Should I go with self settling at bedtime, in our bedroom, in the hope that he will naturally reduce night time feeds, and give him better strategies for getting back to sleep once I decide to stop breast feeding in the night? I just don't know!!!

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated! Thanks :)

What's the biggest 'problem' right now for you? Maybe start with that? You may find that just picking one and starting with that gets things rolling and it might all meld together or become clearer what you need to do next.
Just pick one and start and see what happens. Nothing is set in stone you can change as you go along.

For what it's worth we put DS1 in his room at 7mo and went cold turkey as we'd moved house and movers just put his cot in new room and we didn't move it. In fact I think his sleep got even worse (if possible) once he was in his own room. Was up 2/3 times a night to bfeed until I night weaned at 14mo and started putting him down awake at bedtime.

Depends so much on the baby so you may have to experiment. I moved ds1 into his own room at 5months because I'm pretty sure he was waking because he could sense I was there and wanted milk, so regardless of what time I went to bed I'd be woken up within an hour. So you could try that to see if it reduces his wakings but it may indeed mean you are in and out of bed. I found I slept better without Ds in the room so it was worth getting up if I got to sleep when actually in bed!
I've found self-settling to be hugely overrated in terms of getting them to sleep through, it's main benefit is that you don't have a drawn out bedtime. If you're happy with how he settles at the moment I would leave that until last to change and you're in a good place to change it as he's settling in the cot and not being fed to sleep.
To drop night feeds my dh did all the re-settling for a few nights when Ds was 9months and it was like magic! Obviously we've had ups and downs since then (ds is now 21months) but I never had to do night feeds after that, the big benefit being that dh could then help out with the nightshift.
Hope this helps a bit, I think trying to drop feeds when he is still in your room will be really hard because he won't understand why you're refusing and when you're tired you tend to end up doing whatever it takes to get them to sleep. You may find the 'no-cry sleep solution' a good book to look at, lots of tips :)

Last night was such a bad night - I've noticed that he has started to change the way he feeds in the night. Whereas he used to feed and then pull off when he was finished and I could put him down to sleep, now he wants to keep my boob in his mouth and cries when I pull him off…I can see it is the start of some bad habits (which i fell into with DD).

I think i will move DS into his new room and cot tonight and I'll sleep in there with him on the single bed so that he has company and it is easy for me to deal with his wakings. Then next weekend I think I'll get DP in there and we'll drop night time feeds :( …is it really ok at 8 months to drop night time feeds?

Thanks.

I feel for you! We had very similar with our DD, now 11 months - we did this with her about a month ago. In same boat as you in that she was still in our room, feeding twice at night, and not really self settling at all. I had a feeling that I might need to end up doing CC with her at some point (which we did in the end, though it really wasn't that bad) but to begin with I wanted at least to teach her to settle herself at bedtime. So I did gradual retreat, breaking the feed to sleep habit by feeding her downstairs on sofa, then taking her up to her bed and sitting by her, stroking her etc until she went to sleep. It only took a few nights before I could just plonk her in her cot and sit on the other side of the room from her and she'd be asleep in minutes ... So not a bad idea to at least start with that, so that your DS will get used to going to sleep in the first place not on the boob. It was such a flipping miracle to realise that she could go to sleep on her own, and gave me hope that she'd be able to do it when she woke in the night!

I also cut out night feeds after a couple of nights (def fine at 8 months if he's eating/drinking enough in day) and that was tough, cos she just wouldn't settle, and we had to do CC - but I cut it down from 2 feeds to one first, then cut out that last one, so I wasn't worried that she was hungry. It only took 2 nights before she was sleeping SO much better. CC perhaps not want you want to hear but for us it was the only thing to do, we tried gradual retreat in the night too but that just didn't work, only at bedtime - I think in the nighttime it was a total impediment to her going to sleep, me being there in the room ...

Good luck with whatever you try!

Feed him more during the day so he's not hungry at night. If he wakes offer water or a dummy.

At 8m I'd expect him to sleep at least 6 hours straight every night, if not more. He needs his sleep.

To be perfectly honest I think all those issues are linked and you'd be as well to tackle all at once. You might have a week of stress and very little sleep but then it would be done.

But your little one down for sleep in their own cot in own room and use one of the techniques to get to sleep without feeding/rocking etc (shush/pat, pick up/put down, controlled crying etc)
Then in the night if they wake, persist with settling them without milk using the sane technique.

The key is consistency - same time, same routine, don't confuse by feeding when it gets stressful.

This will only work if you think your little one is ready to go the whole night without milk. You may want to cut down the length of feeds before you go cold turkey. This is what I did and my DS dropped his 2am feed but didn't want to drop is 5am one so I had to stop that and do CC for literally a couple of days and then he started sleeping 8-7 at 8 months and has done it consistently ever since. He's 11.5 months now.