10 month old too young to sleep train? We're exhausted

[LizzH]

I am still breastfeeding our baby boy and he also eats a little three times a day probably four tablespoons of porridge, a mini yogurt or fruit purée at lunch and a mix of potato, meat and veg for dinner. He has two naps one in the morning and one early afternoon for an hr a time max.
He goes to bed between 7-8 after his bath and story and feed and has a dummy.

He wakes at about half 12 and every 2.5 hrs from then until we get up at 7 for a breastfeed.
I have tried to not feed him but he won't go back to sleep until I do and if u just pick him up to settle him he tries to pull at my top and climb to my boobs and gets hysterical.
My health visitor said he should be left to cry when he has been put to bed but he has reflux and starts coughing until he is sick when he gets upset. He's also in our room with us in his cot as we don't have a spare room u til my teenage daughter moves in with her bf next month and my partner goes mad at me if try and leave him when he starts.
I'm considering giving up breastfeeding as I am so tired and maybe he would settle better with a bottle of formula.
I've read the no cry sleep solution no as far as I can tell we are doing everything but not getting results as we can't settle him without my boob in his mouth.

If you are exhausted, I'm sure a bottle of formula would be better than sleep training. 10 months is quite young to night wean a BF baby, most recommended at least 12 months.

Is he BF enough on demand during the day? He could be hungry as he's not eating much in the way of solids and therefore making up for it at night? Although, IME, waking every few hours is very normal for a BF baby.

Have you tried letting your partner settle him? That way you can break the milk/waking connection. He's not eating much solid food though so he probably needs the milk for calories.

I think you can probably try giving him more to eat during the day. My best friend's son, who is still BF at nearly 2, was eating bigger meals at 10 months.

As PP have said seems as though he is not eating enough in the day. I'd try increasing his food intake and slowly reduce the breast feeds.

My DD at 10months ate way more than that, she was EBF. She's now 17 months... three meals, plus snacks and still on the breast.

3 out of 7 nights she wakes up. So not doing too bad. We didn't sleep train. But we co-sleep, so maybe that's what's helped.

We did. Gradual retreat, worked in about 4 days. DH helped. We started on a Friday of a Bank Holiday weekend so we had time to look after each other and nap during the day. There was a great thread on here about how to do it.

With out 3rd, we did it at 7 months. He was waking at the end of every sleep cycle so every 45 mins, we were on our knees with exhaustion with 2 others under 5 as well. He was totally breastfed too but had a dummy for sleeps.
We threw everything we could at it in one go, not sure whether that is a good approach or not but it worked.
We got rid of the dummy as I was fed up of plugging it back in every 45 mins
Moved him out of our room so we didn't disturb him and him us
Ensured he got at least 2 good naps a day, if that meant walking with him in he pram for hours then so be it.
Then once he was down for the night, left him to cry for 1 min, then 2, then 4, then 6 then 8 mins. Going back in after each of those times, shush, lie him down, calm down, then leave. Longest we ever got to was 8 mins on night 2.
By night 3 he was waking just once or twice a night which for us was a good result and totally copeable with. If he did stir he could self settle in a minute or two, unless he was actually hungry or dirty, in which case he wouldn't settle and we knew to go in to him.

We did controlled crying at 6 fmonths and it worked almost immediately. Wouldn't hesitate to do it again.

I night weaned/ sleep trained at 10 months (advised by my hv!)
We did a mixture of sush/pat and gradual retreat. You don't have to leave to cry to sleep train.
It only took my ds about a week to sleep through from being used to waking 3 times a night.
agree with pp that it doesn't seem like much food. Mine was eating well at that stage.
I strarted by only bf between 12 and 4am. (I didn't want to just stop totally incase he was still hungry but he wasn't it was just habit). Any wake ups outside this time we sush/patted or rocked back to sleep. After about 5 days he just didn't wake at all.

At 10 months he shouldnt need to feed that often at night. You must be exhausted, you shoukd be able to get him sleeping longer without just leaving him to cry.

I would try upping the solid food and then start knocking out the night feeds one by one. Perhaps start with the first waking, get your partner to try and settle him by offering a dummy or drink of water. Even if you can't get him back to sleep, try and delay the feed by 30 mins. This worked well for us. Once you have eliminated that feed move on to the next.

At 10 months he should be able to go through the night without food. I would guess he's not waking through hunger but the normal baby 90 minute sleep-cycle (read the Baby Whisperer) and is in the habit of needing to suck to get back to sleep. So you need to break that dependence on using your boob as a prop to get back to sleep. I recommend baby whisperer techniques (pick-up put-down). As a PP said, no need to leave your baby to cry to do sleep training. There are many things we need to teach our children, and one of them is how to sleep through the night.

I sleep trained mine all at around 9months (except first who was indulged and still worst sleeper). I continued to feed until next one came along but dropped night feeds completely. Life saver! With the second, I was nervous but it worked within four days. I had to send my husband away as he couldn't cope with crying babies at all but he took older ones with him so they weren't disturbed.