Did stopping breastfeeding help with your baby's sleep?

[Bubble77bee]

Just that really! I have a 12 month old who has been ebf (plus solids of course). His sleep has been up and down, but recently he has really struggled to get to sleep, and breastfeeding is no longer making him sleepy, so we are really struggling with sleep. I sort of wanted to be able to carry on breastfeeding, but am wondering if stopping might actually help him to sleep better, as currently he is crying out and reaching out for me to help him get to sleep, but feeding is not actually helping, so he just gets more distressed and more tired. When my partner settles him, he goes down more easily. He is still waking in the night, and I can usually get him back to sleep with feeding then, but last night it took ages. My worry is that if I stop breastfeeding and it doesn't actually help his sleep - we might be in a worse situation!
(I've also posted about this in infant feeding.)

Sometimes does, sometimes doesn't and there's no way to tell unfortunately. With sleep, pretty much everything is a phase though- mine went through a period of time where breastfeeding wasn't helping her sleep but it only lasted a few weeks. Night weaning is often easier at 18 months as they can understand much more. I waited until then and the night weaning did seen to help with sleep at that point, but putting her in a proper bed seemed to help far more.

It helped him nap better in the day. Still had night waking but i think they were almost habit by then.

Ds 9 months woke stupid amounts for just a mouthful of bm. Sleep deprivation had me on my knees. Sent dh in with a bottle of ebm and he had an ounce. Second night sent dh in with water. Had none. Third night ds slept through.
Hallafrigginluleah!!
Resulted in a much happier dm and baby also!!

Thank you both. That's my fear really, that I stop, and he still wakes up in the night, and I won't be able to settle him! Another factor is that we are ttc, and don't have time on our side due to my age, so think that stopping breastfeeding might also help this, as although my periods have come back, they are very irregular at the moment.

@Feralkidsatthecampsite That is what I'm hoping for! So glad it worked for you. At the moment, my DS hasn't had a bottle for months, and when my DP goes in for night wakings, DS just gets hysterical, and then takes me even longer to settle him. You can just tell he really wants to go back to sleep, and he gets really distressed when he can't. He is also starting nursery in a month, so I would quite like him to be in a settled routine for getting to sleep by then, to ease the transition. I know that nursery staff apparently have super powers when it comes to getting babies to nap, but anything we can do to make that easier has got to be a good thing.

Nope. I had a non-sleeping baby and a sleeping baby. I breastfed both of them.

I know that nursery staff apparently have super powers when it comes to getting babies to nap, but anything we can do to make that easier has got to be a good thing.

I don't think it's the staff tbh, I think it's just seeing other babies do it.

That’s interesting about watching other babies at nursery settle to sleep, I hadn’t thought of it like that.
Well tonight we decided to move the feed before the bath, and my DP then settled DS. Took a while, but he got there!

My first one started sleeping through the night after we stopped bf. night weaning didn’t make any difference. He was 12 months old. My 2nd is 16 months old and stopping bf didn’t make any difference, she still wakes up for a couple of hours every night. So I guess you will only know if you try it. I shall add that my son stopped bf without any encouragement from me - he was just ready; whereas with my daughter it wasn’t the case so maybe this is why stopping bf didn’t have the same effect. 🤷🏻‍♀️