Weeping here, having a horrible time whilst sleep-training...

[MissK16]

I don't know if you can call "sleep training" what I've just done.

Here is how I happened to be where I am now. My baby is almost 9 month old. All his life he's been breastfed to sleep. I know it's wrong to breastfeed babies to sleep, but it wasn't exactly my choice - I had absolutely no help with looking after my baby for all this time, I'm only 20 years old, my HV is a horrible worker (she never turns up when she said she would, then she can say she knocked on the door, but no one answered, even though I was home all day waiting for her and listening up to the door; I won't exaggerate if I say my HV is a liar who doesn't want to do her job), after childbirth I had a few complications and couldn't walk for 2.5 months after giving birth, I remember myself starving all day because I couldn't walk downstairs and get food, waiting for my partner to come back from work...So because I didn't exactly know what I was doing, and because it was the most comfortable thing to do at the time, I got my son used to falling asleep while nursing.
And it was fine for maybe the first 8 months, then it's become a nightmare. LO wakes up all night, like every hour to be breastfed (we co-sleep), then falls asleep being breastfed. I can only try and finish feeding when he's really deep asleep and won't feel me leaving. It's a nightmare. All night I have to prop myself on my elbow with my neck and arms hurting feeding LO. I get almost no sleep at all. My neck hurts and now that my baby's got 2 teeth he sometimes bites me and it hurts a lot, for ages.
I heard about other mums leaving their babies to cry themselves to sleep, but I thought it was cruel to the babies, also heard it makes them become insecure adults. So I never did it. But then last night all I managed to get was 1 hour of light sleep, and I really messed my neck up. So today I thought I'd try to make LO fall asleep on his own in the day. At first I was sitting with him, singing and trying to offer him a dummy, but then realised he thought I was entertaining him and wasn't going to fall asleep. So I walked out of the room... He cried and cried, screamed "mama"...My heart was squeezed every second of his desperate crying, in 5 minutes I went back to his room to see my baby smiling at me desperately and saying "mama mama mama". I'm crying myself now, I just don't know what to do with him. He thought I abandoned him, he thought I wasn't coming back...but I only wanted him to fall asleep.
Also, LO almost doesn't eat any food, he simply isn't intrested in it at 9 months! Or maybe he just isn't hungry in the day because he breastfeeds all night long...
I'm sorry for the message being so long, I'm just really desperate, I'd be so grateful for an advice. How do your babies fall asleep? How did you train them to? Do you know what I could do to help my son fall asleep on his own?
Thank you for reading and responding)

You've done nothing wrong by feeding your baby to sleep, most babies need help to fall asleep and bf is a godsent in this respect.

He is going through the nine month sleep regression which is a very difficult time. With my first I was really shocked to find that things like sleeping didn't get progressively better and better, but that instead there are big regressions, new problems and the return of old problems. It is normal though and most babies have good and bad sleeping periods.

Do what you must to survive. If CC works for you fine, but it does sound like it didn't work. Have you tried bf lying down? It's a very comfortable position and if you co-sleep you can dose through the worst of it.

Biting is another difficult one. When he bits take him off the breast, put him down and leave him for 30 seconds. He should learn not to bite quite quickly.

Solid food wise he is still very young and it is normal for him to rely primarily on milk. Keep offering a variety of different foods and see what happens but don't worry about it just yet.

Loving the

How are you going MissK?

We are mid sleep training tonight, it's tough... Especially if you are doingn it on your own. We did it before and it worked really well and then got broken by ear infection and sickness. So here we are again.

My HV is also a private sleep consultant, so has been really helpful. She says this:

1. Leave them for 10 seconds, then 20 seconds, then 30 etc, building up to 2 minutes.
2. Then keep going in every 2 minutes, never longer.
3. Have a phrase you always say. Always do the same, ie hug, say it's ok, put back in cot, say night night sleep time... Then leave.
4. keep going with 2 mins till they fall asleep.
5. When they wake leave them 2 mins then go in and keep doing 2 mins.
6. Start this at night then you can also do it for naps in the morning.

I found this great as 2 mins isn't that long. And it worked! Last time he was 10 months old - the first night was 2 hour 20 mins, next night was 18 mins, within a few nights he was sleeping within a couple of mins. It was a bad night if we got to 1 min 30 secs, but we never got to 2 mins again.

And he went from waking 10-12 times a night to once or twice, he always resettled fine, and started napping for 2 hours in the morning (previously max was 25 mins).

So sitting here 40 mins into night one, hoping he soon remembers it all again! But knowing that it'll be worth it in a few nights.

Hope that's of some use to you, and you find something that works for you really soon. x