Has anyone got experience of weaning from boob to bottle at night? ds very reliant on boob as sedative!

[cruisemum1]

my ds is 6.5mths and has always fallen asleep on boob at bedtime. Trouble is he wakes often and needs boob to fall asleep again. The amount he wakes varies night to night. The only way I can see I will break this need is to switch to ff which I am doing anyway during the day. dh and I have some really important evening functions coming up and I need ds to be able to be put to bed by someone other than me (my mum). She will not want to babysit if he is screaming/distressed/not used to bottle at bedtime. I have a dd too so it is unfair on her at bedtime. Sorry if this is not clear but I am rambling a bit. Hope it makes sense.

ps I am expecting tears when the switch takes place but I have to do it sometime.... I don't necessarily want posts asking me what the problem is, more like advice really please...

errr hello?!

i have no direct advice but i have heard a book called the No Cry Sleep Solution is very good, or come up with your own method which you are all comfortable with. Does he get fed to sleep for naps or just at night ... sometimes tackling the daytime can make nights easier??? Hoping that someone else can talk from personal experience ...

I had a problem when bging dd1 - basically I had no milk and she wouldn't take a bottle so it was fun and games all round for a bit!

Firstly, you need NOT to do it yourself. If he smells you and your milk, that is what he will want. Get dh to feed him his bottle and you have to leave the room. It will be difficult for everyone at first, especially if he really doesn't want it but if you need to do it, you must persevere.

Are you talking about giving him formula or ebm? (It doesn't make any difference to my advice, I'm just nosey)

bf-ing, not bg-ing!

I moved DD onto the bottle by getting DH to do all the bedtime bath, dress, story stuff for a week so she wasn't tempted.
I would get him to give her a big bottle before bed and then BF through the night, which was normally a bit less than normal. Then after a few days I stopped BFing before midnight, and just put some milk in a small bottle. then after another few days she got bottles whenever she woke up and that was it. It was easier for me as well as it meant I didn't get massively engorged, which is soooo painful!

My DD was 12 months when we stopped though and I was using cows milk but I wouldn't have thought that makes a huge amount of difference.

hi - yes i've read ncss - did no good at all / Lovely in theory but useless in practise. he doesnt bf to sleep for naps. but only naps in buggy whilst being pushed.

Hi Cruisemum.

As you know I weaned DD from boob to ff. The easiest for me was to let DH do it (when he was around). To start with she didn't have more than a couple of ozs, and I had to shusshh/rock her to sleep. This happened probably for about 3 nights and then she gradually tok a bit more, would go down but grizzled and now she has about 8ozs and goes straight to sleep. Well to be honest she now falls asleep on her bottle so have replaced one problem with another

I'm afraid that it will probably take a few nights for your ds to realise he's not getting any boob before he takes to it properly - not easy to see through when you are tired and have another dc. Good luck

Have you actually tried for someone else taking your ds to bed?
At the beginning of month, when I was still bf ds to sleep (then just under 6 months old) my dh took me out for my b'day and we left ds in the care of two friends.
He had proper sleep before and if he hadn't gone to sleep it would not have mattered much but he did. Apparently he was fighting sleep for 45 mins before it got too much for him and he fell asleep.
He was not crying, just a bit moody with them but they could distract him pretty well.
It does not work though when ds knows I am in the house. He must smell me I think.

Since starting co- sleeping he now falls asleep by himself (well he's done it four nights now) in his own cot and after the first night- feed moves into bed with us.

thansk all. knackered now will respond tomorrow!

Why don't you have him stay overnight with your mum for a trial run? I did that for my sister when she needed a break with her exclusively breastfed DD a few years ago. She wouldn't take a bottle at all. Sister came and breastfed her during the day then went home at night. I just cuddled her when she woke and she got nothing else.

Since your DS will take a bottle anyway, why not just see what happens with your mum.

Either that or DH bottle feeds him going to bed and goes to him during the night. Is he up for that?

The alternative is not to feed him at all when he wakes frequently during the night but that could be a tough one.

I am not sure that ff is the answer but I wish you luck.

cruisemum1 - Understand your predicament. BFed both DDs to sleep, and had to do it repeatedly during night. I read "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems" by Dr Richard Ferber. Followed advice to get them off breast in the night, and break BF associations with going to sleep. He says after 6 months, they don't actually need milk in the night, and having it will actually keep them waking. Took less than a week with both of them. Only let them cry for 5 mins at a time, and did PU/PD - couldn't face proper CC. Mine were older (DD1 was 18 months. Vowed I'd do it at 6 with DD2, but have only just done it at 17. WISH I'd done it at 6 months.) Good luck, whatever you do x

thank you.