20 months old sleep hell and night weaning (BF)

[bunny85]

Hi everyone.

I'm sorry this is long.

I don't really know how I'm going to write a structured post that makes sense because I'm literally at the verge of a huge breakdown, both physically and emotionally. I do hope someone can offer me an advice.

Ds is 20 mo, and he's still breastfed. He's always been a terrible sleeper and I haven't slept well since he was born. I've always breastfed him to sleep and co-slept (most of the time, not always- sometimes I just leave him in bed asleep and go to another bedroom as he's a very light sleeper and wakes at my every stir). It has been a constant struggle, I've had some hellish time on and off, and I recently realised I cannot cope any longer. I tried to give him the best, tried to do attachment parenting thing etc, but I realised I've hit the rock bottom.

So, I decided to night wean. Surprisingly, he took it better than I expected. Few days prior to starting I started explaining to him that boobie is asleep at night and is very tired and in pain. He understood it perfectly well and kept commenting on it and feeling sorry for me. First night he cried of course but I held him and cuddled and rocked him and kissed him so hopefully it wasn't too harsh on him. He very quickly learned to fall asleep without the boob. I almost celebrated the victory and started to imagine how I'm going to sleep all night etc. However, now the few nights have passed, I see things are only getting worse in fact. Firstly, he still wakes up just as often and needs cuddles/strokes to fall back asleep instead of the boob (my husband tried doing it, but ds calls mama, crying badly). Secondly, now it takes him a lot longer to fall asleep without boob, so he ends up falling asleep at 11pm. Then, this morning he woke up at 6.30am and I've been trying to put him down for a nap now but no luck. He then goes for long nap (up to 3 h) later in the afternoon and of course late bedtime follows again.

What scares me the most is him ending up chronically overtired and instead of enjoying my sleep at night I'll end up having to start from the scratch BFing him all nap long and all night long just to get him to sleep... I'm terrified of this and sure that I will not cope. I feel tearful constantly and think there's no light at the end of the tunnel. When he was little people used to say that things will get better when he turns 3 months/6 months/one year/18 months... but nothing ever got better. Now my only hope was night weaning, and here I am again. Can anyone help with any words of wisdom? Just to mention, I'm not a supporter of CIO and that is one thing I wouldn't like to do. Otherwise any gentle yet effective suggestion are very very much needed and welcome (if there's is at all?).

Thanks for reading this long rumbling.

Why don't you take this change as the opportunity to get him in a cot in his own room?

It's going to be hard work so you could do with gathering some support around you for a week or two. Do it when you have a week off work, if you work. Preferably when DH is off too, so he can at least give you lots of recuperation time in the days. If you have other trusted friends or relations, have them on hand to take baby for a couple of hours each day to give you a chance to rest.

Then take the plunge. Baby in the cot, get him a comforter toy. Put him in there fully awake and get yourself a comfy chair and sit next to the cot. Plan for it taking a long, long, long, longgggg time to get him to sleep. Set your expectations and be ready to sit there from 7pm for as long as needed.

Repeatedly lying him back down. Place hand on his chest when lying down. Smush the comforter to his cheek. Shush as needed. Keep in lying him back down every time he goes to get up.

Of course he'll cry, but you'll stay right there with him throughout. Stay calm, don't get frustrated or tense. Just keep going. Just. Keep. Going.

Also get his room ready. Blackout curtains plus blind, have it pitch black. White noise is vital to a light sleeper, I think. I use a desk fan to provide white noise and soothing air movement. But you can get machines that do it. You want white noise going all night long, quite loud.

I think settling him in the cot, without any distractions or anything to wake him, will be the turning point.

First of all, 11 pm to 6.30 is not a total disaster. My children were late going to bed. So what? I would rather they went to bed late than wake up at 5 or even 4. Mine also had a long nap in the afternoon. Why does it need to be at 11 am? He may just be active and need less sleep. I think the advice given by Fate is excellent. I don't see why every child needs to conform to a set pattern and if you can get up to 8 hours at night with no feeding, that would be good. If he understands no boob, you can build on that.

We recently night weaned then fully weaned 2 weeks later. I still fed to sleep then said boobie was sleeping until morning. DD is 21 months.

For the full 2 weeks I might weaned she woke up 2 or 3 times a night. Took 30 mins plus to go back to sleep. Cried angrily and hit me. But once she calmed down would go back to sleep. We co-slept through out.

After 2 weeks I fully weaned. Told her that there was no more boobie. That she was a big girl and didn't need it anymore. She just accepted it straight away. DH put her to sleep for the first 2 days which broke the routine a bit then I took over again. No choice as he works away. She now just cuddles up to me and goes to sleep. Can take 5 mins or over an hour. Depends on the day.

BUT she now sleeps through the night. She naps for 2-3 hours each day and at least 10 hours each night. We still co-sleep but this will be the next change.

If you had asked me I would have bet a million pounds that she would be a nightmare to wean. But she just accepted it. I'm still in a state of shock 2 weeks later.

Thank you all very much for taking time to reply. Your posts made me tearful (well, everything makes me tearful these days!)

Fate, thank you. Yes, I do have support. My mum is staying over and has been a life saver. She was the one to convince me to start weaning while she's here, couldn't have done it on my own (my husband works long hours and Saturdays). We have tried the white noise when he was a baby, it made a slight difference but then I sold the machine because I read somewhere online that these machines are apparently quite loud and if used for long periods of time could be harmful to baby's hearing. I don't know how true this is, but made me worry a bit. Once mum leaves, he'll be sleeping in his own room (we have a 2 bed house). I wasn't sure about a cot since he's never had one and now he's nearly two, we bought him a toddler bed instead. It's still in the loft... maybe it's time to introduce it as a next step? If he's not ready yet, we might as well buy a cot.

In terms of weaning. We are reading a book which talks about day and night and that boobies are asleep when it's dark outside (it's a weaning book). The question now is, what do I do in terms of nap time? Can I feed him to sleep then, since it's technically day time? He understands a lot and can hold a mini conversation and I'm sure this crosses his mind. Yet it's possibly contributing to sleep association? When he cries at night, his eyes are always closed so I doubt he even realises it's night time. Any advice for the nap time?

Bubbles, thanks for reassurance. In fact that's only happened once, last night. Normally I get him to sleep 9-10 hours a night and then he naps for 2+ hours so hopefully that should suffice.

MadeForThis, I'm very thrilled for you. You must be loving the sleep. I felt the same about my DS but was shocked how (relatively) well he took it. Am I right then that what you are saying is that he will stop waking up eventually for cuddles as well? Because at the moment it just feels like I swapped one thing for another. I feel extremely depressed and like there's no light at the end of this...

Sorry for the delay. Just seeing this now. My DD only stirs at night now. She'll roll over etc but mostly goes straight back to sleep. She's become incredibly cuddly during he day. I suppose they just want a different form of closeness. DD could have fed a dozen times a day if we were at home and used to constantly latch on at night. It's amazing how quickly she broke this association and now just sleeps.
I'm living the idea of more sleep but the reason we decided to wean was I'm 20 weeks pregnant and wanted her to be comfortably off the boob before no 2 arrived.

Let us know how you get on with the move to the toddler bed. We have converted DD's cot into a toddler bed and have pushed it up against ours. She sleeps in it for part of the night but usually ends up back in ours at some point. He plan is to gradually move the bed across the room then into her own room. Hopefully this goes as smoothly as weaning.

Thank you MadeForThis and sorry for the delay as well. Congratulations on your no 2 on the way! In this situation weaning in advance is of course a very wise thing to do. In my case it's a sheer exhaustion though. Believe it or not I thought about you last night at 3am I thought it worked for someone so it must work for us too! He cried few times again but it's getting better. Tonight he fell asleep with no boobie and no crying at all. I offer him milk in his water bottle instead (bad idea! But for the transition period only) and it really works. He's become incredibly cuddly too, especially at bedtime. He cuddles to me and kisses me constantly, it's very touching and sweet, that's an extra bonus for me during this hard time. As for co-sleeping, neither me or my DH mind at all, so long as he sleeps. But toddler bed would be nice though. I'll post here again when (if!) that happens with my report