How to night wean if DC won't be settled by anyone else.

[Thistledew]

DS is 21 months. He is still breastfeeding, usually now just morning and evening and if I am at home he will feed to sleep for his nap. He will otherwise only go to sleep in his buggy.

He still wakes usually at least once in the night, and will have a quick feed and go back to sleep. He is cutting his canines at the moment so is being rather more unsettled at night.

I just don't see any way of weaning him at night until he decides to give it up He is utterly inconsolable if anyone else tries to settle him at night time. In the last couple of months there have been two occasions when I have gone out in the evening and he has woken and then just screamed until I have returned. The first time DH was at home, and he was unable to settle him. Fortunately, I was only 10 mins away. The second time he was with MiL, with whom he has a very good bond. DH and I were at an event 45 mins from home and DS just screamed until we got back and I went to him. He was not even starting to settle for MiL.

Is there any way realistically that I can encourage him to wean at night time so that someone else can settle him to sleep? Or do I just have to suck it up until he decides he is ready. Given that he didn't start to settle within 45 mins I am not willing to let him cry it out.

Could DH start doing all naps at the weekend? Get him used to being settled by him before you move onto nights.

Thanks tea - the trouble we have with daytime naps is that he has no off switch apart from breastfeeding. Even if he is showing all signs of being very tired he will do everything he can not go to sleep. We can do all the things to try to settle him - curtains closed, story, getting him to lie down in his cot, but 20 seconds later he will be literally bouncing around his cot. He can now climb out as well so there is no way I can leave him in it to settle to sleep.

I did have a period of a few months when he was about a year old when I could put him into his cot awake and he would go to sleep, but that stopped completely when he started walking.

He is not completely asleep when I put him in his cot at night time as he will quite often say "night-night" as I put him down and leave him. It is just the 'getting sleepy' phase that is so reliant on bf.

My DH took over my DS' naps at the weekend a few months ago. He rocks him a little bit and then lies down on a bed with him so DS goes to sleep with him to replace the BF. But then DS has never slept in a cot! He's now on a double mattress on the floor.

By the sounds of it, you're either going to have to refuse to feed or hand him over and leave DH to it. I stopped BF my DD to sleep at 21mo because DS was born. I did the count to 10 and then unlatch and stay with her thing, but again always lying on a bed.

Good luck!

Google Jay Gordon and night weaning. I did it with both my daughters around the age your ds is now and it was not as bad as I'd feared. Took a few nights, and they did wake sometimes still, but they would be settled by me and without breastfeeding. He explains it really well. It's for babies over 1. Best of luck x

Also, both of mine dropped naps between 20-22 months, as they didn't naturally get sleepy ever either. They'll easily fall asleep in the car, still, at 3 and 5, but they just don't nap. They also sleep less at night than their peers. Who knows why.......

We did Jay Gordon with DD as well. Haven't needed to with DS but I would use it again. However, you either have to refuse to feed when it's not time or you have to send DH in. There's not really another way around it other than wait until they grow out of it.

I like the look of Jay Gordon and will read what he has written a bit more closely, but I'm not sure if it will work. DS is most often still just about awake when I put him back in his cot, even for night feeds, but if I try to put him down when he has not had as much milk as he wants then he will just stand up and ask for more. Trying to encourage him to lie down, and any sort of stroking or patting just results in screaming.

Maybe part of the issue is that he is a skinny thing but when he is teething it is a real struggle to get him to eat a decent portion. He may well still be genuinely too hungry to go through the night.