Regret breastfeeding, can’t get baby to stay asleep

[Ploppymoodypants]

Hello, wonder if anyone can help me. I am at my wits end with my 13 month old baby. I love her beyond belief, but I really regret breastfeeding her. She would still feed round the clock if she could and it’s the only thing that comforts her when she is unwell or upset or teething etc etc.

I am been awake since 4.45am while she just screams and cries because I won’t feed her back to sleep. (I am lying in bed with her trying to comfort her, I haven’t just abandoned her and ignored her). But I have been trying this for 3 weeks now and she is no better. She has always fed to sleep, waking approx 3 or 4 times a night, but as she hit her first birthday that stopped working and I couldn’t get her back to sleep. So I started with a new bedtime routine of feed in front room and teeth and story and cuddles in bed so sleep. Then gradually dropping the night time feeds. And although we have had the odd night where she will sleep through or is easy to resettle, overall I am still having an hour of screaming before she falls asleep at night and again if she wakes.

I am beyond tired, it’s affecting my relationship with my other older daughter as I am too tired to spend time with her and I’m grumpy all the time. I’ve had to give up all my hobbies and any crumb of me time, as any childcare I get offered I have to spend sleeping. Im just so resentful and it makes me feel guilty as I know I am so lucky to have a lovely healthy little girl. I’m back at work in January and I am worried I will get sacked as I barely know my own name I’m so tired and don’t feel safe to drive most days.
Everyone you speak to says that after a few days the babies accept that you won’t feed in the night. But DD just sobs herself to sleep or otherwise lies there awake completely empty with a hopeless sort of wimper and I just feel so awful, because I am obviously failing her. I just don’t know how to get some sleep and meet the needs to my other daughter and myself. Please don’t all suggest my husband help. That’s not gonna happen and I need to sort this myself somehow....
She isn’t hungry, she eats well, supper at 5m, with pudding, then a bottle of formula and also a bF in the front room before bed. Plus if I offer formula in the night she just throws the bottle. She just wants my boob as a dummy. I know it’s natural but it’s not working for me 😔

I was in a very similar situation myself with my son and felt the way you did- resentful, bloody knackered, wished I had just bottle fed him. The thing that worked for me was stopping cosleeping. I put him in his own cot in his own room and sat with him till he fell asleep. He did cry but improved dramatically after one night. I think it is very hard to night wean if the thing they want is right there in front of their face. Is this an option? I really hope you get some sleep soon.

I couldn’t Co-sleep with my baby for this reason. He would suckle all night if he could and spend all night trying to get to my breast head butting me. It might be a tough transition but i think you’d benefit from having her in her own room. Does she nap in her own room? Maybe work on getting her to nap by herself and then move onto nighttime.

Thank you. We don’t co sleep. She is in her own room in a cot. I just cuddle her to her get to sleep as I didn’t want to do full on controlled crying. So I only go in if she wakes and cries. And sometimes I can settle her with a cuddle and other times like today it’s 2 hours of hysteria.
Thing is I then get up at 7am, and then she has a feed so it’s like I’ve given in 🤷🏼‍♀️

Could you get her to take a dummy?? Not ideal I know but might save you?

I was going to suggest hunger but see you've covered that. Could you try a beaker of water in the night. I appreciate it'll probably get launched, but just to rule it out. What about a dummy? Again, I realise she'll probably give you a look of horror and launch it but maybe worth knowing for sure. I didn't give my 14mo daughter a dummy and every now and again she wants to pacify on me (but my milk is nearly gone now) and so I offer a dummy and she looks at me like I've got two heads, so I know it probably won't work, but you never know!

Agree with the suggestion of sleeping in a separate place. My second gave up sleep for a month when she was 6mo and when we moved her to her own room she just slept all night every night. Then again she wasn't breastfed and I appreciate it's a whole other thing. Can you afford a sleep trainer? Or speak to the Health Visitor. Our HV service has a lady who is trained in sleep training and comes out and helps parents.

I really feel your desperation, but do try and focus on the fact that at some point this will no longer be an issue.

Do you have a partner who can help? My daughter wouldnt take a bottle from me but would from my husband

Just seen your update about her having her own room, so ignore my comment.

Do you still breastfeed at any other point? I'm wondering if she wont accept you not feeding at night if you still do it in the day.

Can you get your partner to do bed time routine in separate room. If you cuddle her, she can smell your milk.

This sounds so hard. Firstly, ditch the formula and switch to full fat cows milk which is fine at 13 months. Formula is so expensive! Also please know that this isnt necessarily about bfing as I know ff and bf babies who are up and down or not. Have you tried the little ones sleep programme? I could establish bfing with DD but she was still up loads and DH was usefulness so this was a godsend. Also checkout the wonder weeks online as I found that really correlated with the worst times for DD and then I knew that amount of waking was temporary and would pass.

I know you say don't suggest your Dh but she doesn't expect him to breastfeed her so it may be a quick solution to her sleeping. She is used to you feeding her to sleep and doesn't understand that this has now stopped, your boobs are right there.

You taught her that this is the way we sleep (by breastfeeding) you are now teaching her a new way to sleep. It is hell for a bit but it won't be forever. Hang on in there. You have done amazing to breastfeed for so long.

Thank you everyone. I have tried introducing a dummy. She will take it happily in the day but absolutely refuses at night. Have had a special meeting with health visitor and implemented her plans but it’s just not working.

I have the wonder weeks app and she isn’t in a leap so chose this time to start particularly (well nearly 4 weeks ago now).
I do BF in the day. But only twice and then before bedtime routine. I thought it would be nice to still have some quality time. She takes a sippy cup happily from the childminder or even me in the day. DH can’t help. He works 60 hours doing funny shifts and it’s a dangerous job where he would risk others and himself if he wasn’t 100% on the ball...

I'm in th same boat as you, no advice but lots of empathy x

Thank you everyone for responding. Sorry if it sounds like I am dismissive of your suggestions. They are all helpful, even if just BF it elimination purposes

You poor thing - sleep deprivation is horrible, especially when it’s affecting your relationship with your older child too.

I have to say, night weaning my second child didn’t work at all at that age and was just distressing for us both, but did work and make a huge difference a few months later at 18 months. She still tends to wake 1-2x a night, but not for long, and I feel much less drained (whether physically or psychosomatically!) for not having breastfed her during the night even though we’re not yet sleeping through. Like you(?), getting a non-breastfeeding carer to do nights was not an option (in my case because I’m a single parent), which perhaps made the night weaning thing harder than it would otherwise have been, but it was doable when she was older.

I wanted to pick up on the thing about getting up and feeding her at 7am and seeming like that was undoing all the hard work and crying of the preceding hours. Have you tried a gro clock type thing? This is what I do (actually I use a lumie alarm clock as I can’t bear the bright blue ‘moon’ of the gro clock!), and it makes this distinction easier even when she is awake at the time it goes from ‘night time, go the fuck to sleep’ to ‘morning, you can feed now’.

I also wanted to just add what a pleasant (for baby!), kind and loving thing I think it is, to breastfeed on demand through the night, and even though you’re well within reasonable to say enough’s enough now, I hope in time you feel less regretful of this. My DC1 was a shocking shocking sleeper and I didn’t night wean him til past his second birthday because he just couldn’t manage it til then and philosophically it was what I wanted to do. It still took a number of months before he started sleeping well, and I honestly have no regrets at all that I fed him through the night as long as I did - there are loads and loads of things I think I have got wrong over the years, but I’m really happy we did that, I think it was good for him. I also don’t regret stopping when I did, when it was the right time for me even though he’d prefer to continue. This is maybe a bit garbled because both neglected children keep interrupting me but I wanted to say be kind to yourself. And I hope you get more sleep soon.

Oh - sorry am sure you’ve done this already but calpol? I think teething discomfort often seems to kick in at bedtime somehow.

Thank you for your kind message Nell.
I have been giving calpol at bedtime but I worries because it’s been for weeks now, and although she is teething, surely she can’t have calpol every night for the the next 2 years until all her teeth are though 🤷🏼‍♀️

Maybe you need to drop the early morning feed? Perhaps she is unsettled all night and then she knows she will get a feed eventually in the morning. Maybe it could just be an evening feed now and slowly phase it out. I would stop giving calpol every night, it’s clearly not doing anything is she’s still unsettled and it’s not good to give it weeks on end really.
It might not even be feeding related, she could just have periods overnight which will eventually sort themselves out. Not helpful I know, but my 3 year old still wakes some nights just to see me for reassurance. He didn’t start sleeping more reliably until almost 3, so although I don’t want you to dread having sleepless nights for a long time, it might just be the way she is. It’s so hard, sleep deprivation is a killer. Hope things get better soon. I found as soon as I started to accept that this was how he was, and stopped expecting more from him, it was easier to deal with x

Thank you Emma. Yes I did wonder about dropping the morning feed and heading straight to breakfast. I’ll try that. I guess I was just trying to reconnect after a horrible night. But perhaps your right.
I agree, acceptance is the key. I just feel so sad having to accept that time with my older daughter isn’t going to happen. I feel like I am missing her childhood 😔