Please help! So conflicted!!!

[Moominmama1234]

Hi there 👋🏻
1st time posting...and cannot really find the words to express how grateful il be for any advice with this....
Feeling really really conflicted ...
My baby is 14months and still breast fed ( has been ebf) though eats plenty most days ( 3 x 3 course meals + snacks)
Has been in own room/ cot since 7months (prior to that was in bedside crib and after 16week sleep regression...at worst...woke every hour / hour 20...)
The problem is...I still breast feed him to sleep each night...and back to sleep when he wakes (1-3 x each night...when not ill/teething)
Iv had literally 3 evenings 'out' where my husband or my mum have settled him to sleep by pushing in pushchair...but Iv been back before he woke...no idea how they'd have coped if he had..
Both daytime naps are in pushchair or car seat.
He does have a comfort blanket that we use in daytime.
Basically...I'm ready to stop breastfeeding ( he day weaned himself a Couple of months ago...) to
Sleep and overnight...as feeling myself losing the plot slightly...( went thru a rough patch few weeks back where he'd take an hour + of comfort sucking to get to sleep...) by have NO IDEA HOW to do it....and cannot bear the thought of him
Getting really distressed :( I know....I need to toughen up...but I'm just not built that way... :(
Have come close to some type of sleep training SO many times but always chickened it...Iv accidentally / inadvertently practised attachment parenting I think...( just came instinctively) and know it will break my heart to watch / hear him
Cry his eyes out :(
Family / husband see me slowly
Losing my mind and encourage me to start doing things differently..
But where do I begin?
Gradual retreat?
Work on daytime 1st?
I'm trying to get him
To drink cows milk from beaker in day...but he's so far not very taken...even with a drop
Of vanilla...

Do I need to just be brave and get on with it? Else suffer the consequences of having a baby whose totally reliant on me at bedtime and over night for the next ???? Months / years??

Sorry about essay and probably asking the obvious...I just can't figure out whether to go with head or heart and would value any advice/ similar experiences?!

Thankyou so much xxx

We've never sleep trained. I don't feed to sleep any more and DS is same age. We've gradually gone from popping him off as he's been sleepy to stopping when he's still awake and starts messing about/ just comfort sucking.
We then cuddle and now, after a month or so of this, he points at his cot then after a bit of sit up/ lie down, lies himself down, gets comfy and drifts off to sleep with a bit of singing and sometimes bum patting on a good night. Doesn't take cows milk as alternative but sometimes DH can put him to bed without me (ok, once) or settle him once I lose the plot with stand up in cot, flap about.

Night weaning hasn't happened yet. Despite me being ready, i know he's really not. DH had a run of four nights off this weekend but DS has just had a sickness bug, then me, then DH nearly so probably not the right time.

As for naps: he's only on one now, and has been for a while. Don't feed for that now. I had to use pushchair etc for a bit but now we play upstairs then into cot and same as bedtime

You need support from husband for this.

And this might help: sarahockwell-smith.com/2014/08/10/how-to-gently-night-wean-a-breastfed-baby-or-toddler/

I was you OP! Ds1 we ebf, refused a bottle. Terrible sleeper. We co slept, then moved to out to g him in the cot asleep after bf to sleep. Co slept and bf back to sleep after waking. By the time he was 12 months old is been back at work for 3 months, and somehow, after dtd once, was pregnant again.

We had a firm bedtime routine (bath, pjs, 2 stories then music mobile on and bf to sleep) I started offering cows milk in nuby silicone tested cup. After a week or so he preferred that to bf to sleep. So then I decided on gradual retreat. To clarify, he had never fallen asleep independently. All naps were on me, in the sling, car or pram. So to say I was apprehensive was an understatement.

I did the routine then put him in the cot with the music on and gave him his milk. He laid drinking the milk watching the mobile. I sent to him, leaning over the cot patting etc for 70 minutes . He didn't cry. Gradually as the days went on it took less time and I stopped leaning over. Sat next to the cot . Yes some nights he bounced around like a loon .

I took ages over it but by the time he was 15 months old, I could put him in the cot, mobile on and I'd sit at the top off the stairs for 20minutes while he fell to sleep, and had sleep through til 5am. Learning to fall asleep I dependent really reduced the nightwakings. We had no tears at all.