17mo- what can I achieve in a week??

[daisydalrymple]

Neighbours are going away for a week. Dc3 is 17mo and still wakes in the night, co-sleeps from when I go to bed when he wakes. He's still bf, as is dairy intolerant and it's just the easiest option for now.

BUT, I really need some more sleep and want my evenings back to have more time with ds1 and dd. What realistically can I do in a week to gently encourage him to sleep without a feed / cuddle?? Whilst I'm not prepared to do CC / CIO, I appreciate there will be some crying whilst I'm with him. He is LOUD. Which is why ive taken the easy option till now, as ds1 and dd need their sleep and neighbours don't need the noise.

Any suggestions for a plan I can try for a week to start a transition from where I'm at now???

Is your aim to stop co sleeping then?

Ultimately yes, but that won't happen in a week, but I'd just love to help him settle himself to sleep without still feeding to sleep. Because he wasn't diagnosed with the dairy intolerance till 9 months, (nobody would believe me till we started weaning due to him being bf). he'd got so used to the bf providing comfort for the pain that it just carried on.... And carried on.

I just need a simple plan to start the transition, but he just SCREAMS the minute I try the sleepy but awake malarkey. He's dc3, so read all the books first time round and have no energy for it this time. Just hoping for an elusive magic answer I may have missed

No wisdom, but solidarity. My 13 month old has always been fed to sleep, (dd2) and it just seems to have stopped working. Last night took 2 hours to get her to sleep, and she's often awake for an hour or two in the night as well. So we're trying to teach her to fall asleep without feeding this week. Am prepared for lots of crying!

Hope you make good progress, get some good advice, and get some good sleep!

It exhausting isn't it? Ds1 and dd are now just turned 7&9, so when ds2 was born I just did the normal newborn feed to sleep, with the vague notion of the transition to going into cot sleepy but awake but just never got that Magic window. Dh works long hours and is never around at bedtime, so ive always been conscious of not disrupting the other two. And it's just gone on so long. I guess I don't even mind the co sleeping so much, I'd just love bedtime to be 30mins max and know I can get a decent stretch of eve, time with dcs, then a bath uninterrupted. Ds2 won't even settle for DH during the evening, having never done any night wakings, it's getting ridiculous now.