Help

[AKM89]

Long story short, my almost thirteenth month old hadn’t been a great sleeper since around 4 months. I spent most of my maternity leave since then in a fog. I went back to work when he was around 10.5 months and my husband took over childcare at that point (we did shared parental leave). By that stage things had become a bit more manageable - waking 2 times a night and relatively easy to settle via feeding. However, things have (understandably) gotten a lot worse since he started nursery and separation anxiety kicked in - since then my husband has been unable to help with settling at night and it can take up to an hour each time he wakes. Things came to a head last week when the baby got an infection, during which he only slept on me. On Friday I collapsed from what I think must just be exhaustion. I have a very demanding corporate job and can’t go on like this, but have always taken a responsive approach to parenting so don’t want to leave him to cry it out (I know there are less severe options but believe me when I said we have tried them all to no avail). Any words of advice or solace would be much appreciated.

I used to feed to sleep at bedtime but brought forward the last feed to earlier in the routine and just gave lots of cuddles before putting him down. We did this for a few days then started night weaning (I think that may have made the actual night weaning easier)
When he woke up I would send DH in ( so DS doesn't expect milk!) He gave him cuddles / stroked his back then left. He had to go in several times at first. It was really hard because you just think "oh if I just go feed him we can all get some sleep!". You do have to give it a chance and commit to it if you decide its what you want to do.

@katylou66 sorry for my slow reply. I definitely think it's worth holding off with night weaning until the teething is done. You don't need to make it any harder than it has to be by picking a time they're guaranteed to be waking more than usual. You want to be able to see it through first time.

Just a quick update - I’ve managed to avoid feeding during the night both of the last two nights, and have moved the last feed of the day to before the bed time story. There’s still a bit of anger at nap times and during the night, and it hasn’t massively improved sleep yet but I know it’s early days so I am going to give it a chance to settle down before deciding what to do next. Thanks to everyone who has advised so far.