6 month old sleep refuser and boob addict

[3sugarsplease]

*Apologies in advance as this may be very long.. And apologies if they're spelling mistakes - I'm incredibly sleep deprived!

My DS turns 6 months this week, he's BF on demand, (which always seems like he 'snacks') so he never has a full feed resulting him being on the breast every 1hr 30 at least, he co-sleeps with us, and is fed to sleep, he also refuses a dummy and doesn't particularly like taking a bottle from me (however will from others). He goes down in our bed at 7 at night (we have bed bumpers) sometimes wakes up within 30 mins but often doesn't wake until 10 and then from wakes up every 2 hours from them, basically just wanting to suckle and then will fall back to sleep. I also think he's a very high needs baby, very wingy, etc.

After 6 months of no sleep, I really want to get some sleep training going. I think our problems are that he doesn't know how to self soothe and quite frankly he's a boob addict.

Basically I would like to know does sleep training work with a high needs baby, when is the right time, what are the right methods and how do I do it.

Please tell me there's a super nanny on here?*

Have you started weaning yet? Solid foods may affect his sleep patterns for the better. If he is hungry he will need the boob not just for comfort.

Sympathy, there with you! Just played a similar thread today. Also despairing.

One thing that worked for a friend in a similar situation was to space feeds out a bit. Before I was feeding on demand loads but now trying to do every few hours. Not sure how well it will work though! Also going to reduce daytime naps. We'll see how it goes!

At 6 months can you now distract him a bit when he whines a lot? Like pp said try to space them out a bit? So do usual feed then wait 2 hours and just do whatever you can to distract/entertain him then gradually space them out more? Hopefully he will get used to it. Keep offering dummy as well.

I'm also trying to pluck up the courage for sleep training

Oh yes and solids, anything he can suck on!

Yep, I had this too.

I decided at six months that it was time for DD to go in her own cot in her own room. We started baby led weaning and night weaned at the same time. In fact, we went pretty cold turkey for night feeds as I figured she was feeding more out of habit than need/want. My OH took over night wakings so she knew she was getting any food and within three nights she was sleeping through, maybe waking the odd time at first but this soon fizzled out and we now get, on average, 12 hour sleeps.

Wasn't* getting any food