Breastfeeding my two year old has turned into HELL

[Mummymillymac]

Suppose I'm looking for some sort of advice/stories of others experience with this...
My lovely boy will be 2years old at the end of November and he's still breastfed.
He has never ever slept more that three hours (and even three hours is pretty rare) lately he's become even more attached to myself and now screams if I don't put him to bed and will scream if I don't feed him to sleep.
He isn't fed during the day and doesn't even bother with them (he calls them booboos and it breaks my heart) I've absolutely lived feeding him and my journey breastfeeding has been amazing but I'm ready to stop now.

It's causing a lot of strain and stress in my marriage and I've not slept apart from him (he's in our bed) since he's been born.

When he goes to my mums and MILs house they can lay next to him in a bed and he'll fall asleep fine so I know he's capable but when I'm around he'll cry his heart out for me. And then when he does finally go to sleep he'll wake up at least 3/4 times at night and feed. I've tried saying no but he'll scream and cry. We have two older children so I'm always worried he'll wake them up too.

He's obviously so attached now to my boobs in particular and I just don't know how I'm going to stop.

Pleas if anyone can give my any advice I'll be so grateful.

None of my friends ever breastfed for very long nor my own family and they all think it's really weird that he's still BF so I do struggle talking to them.

My husband is brilliant, but I know deep down that he doesn't understand that special relationship my son and I have, and like I said it's started to take its toll on us both.

Thank you

I bf my dd1 until she was 22 months. She was super attached and fed during the day too. Had only ever fed to sleep.

I was 18 weeks pregnant and didn't want to tandem feed to knew I needed to stop.

Google the Jay Gordon method. It's designed for those who co-sleep which we also did.

Dd was very verbal and fully understood when you explained things to her.

I started by feeding to sleep then saying no boobies until it was daylight. Every time she woke up I told her that they didn't work at night any more. She was ANGRY. Slapped and shouted and even tried to bite. But I stuck to it. I would talk to her about what we had done that day. And what our plans were for tomorrow. Eventually she would calm down and talk to me. Then she would fall asleep.

She woke up at least 3 times a night. Same anger each time. I still fed to sleep and as required during the day. But 100% stuck to no feeds at night. After 2 weeks she slept longer and was calmer. At this point I went totally cold turkey on all feeds.

She asked about twice then NEVER mentioned it again. It was like something clicked that it was over. And she was fine. Even when dd2 arrived and bf she wasn't interested. I'm still in shock about how it happened.

The jay Gordon method is very clear but I kind of adapted it to suit me and dd.

Good luck. It's not easy but it will happen.

Thank you. I'm in the same boat and needed to see someone else write it down. I'll google that method, thank you!

Whatever you do you will need to stand firm, he needs uninterrupted sleep more than he needs breast milk now.

drjaygordon.com/breastfeeding/night-nursing-the-older-baby.html

Thank you so much for your replies.

My husband has been trying to put to sleepy tonight as has been up there for a long time 🙄

I haven't fed all day and when I said no earlier I tried to distract him and he didn't seem to mind but I know tonight when he wakes he'll me soo mad 😩😭 will stay firm.

I'm have a read of that link, thank you, sounds very interesting and I'm so glad it worked for you and your little one. Hopefully I'll be as successful.

Will keep updated x

We don't co sleep so in a slightly different situation. My sons will be 2 on nov 16th and he was feeding to sleep until about 6 weeks ago then most of the time I go so I managed to lay him down awake, he hasn't slept through the night once and 3 hour stretches were as good as it got. 2 weeks ago I just decided to end it, I hardly felt like I had any milk sometimes and he'd mess around a bit, so at bed time I said no more milky and he just accepted it and slept for a longer stretch than ever, when he did wake I gave him some juice and he went back to sleep faster than he ever has, the following night wasn't such plain sailing and he was angry at bed time and it took a while of cuddling and speaking softly, but now 2 weeks down the line today he's gone to sleep and I can't remember the last time he even suggested me feeding him. I think after the first night of not feeding him it made me determined that it was finished so made sure I followed through with it when he put up a protest the next night.
Probably no help but it's my experience

No @onyabikeivy, your reply is really helpful and appreciated so thank you!

If he sleeps OK with mil etch why not let him sleep with dh for a week, then you're not there at night one and he'll accept there's no bfing. Have you got another bedroom/sofa you could sleep in?

I can honestly say 3 weeks ago I couldn't see how it was going to stop

My Ds was about the same age I stopped.

I also just refused in the night. When he cried . Lay him down rubbed his back so he was still getting comfort but not from my boobs.

Once confident he could get to sleep stopped the first one .

I found it so hard getting advice as it is always pushing b feeding but I felt I had done my time.