Entertain me. I am sitting in the dark at the foot of a 3 year old's bed being shouted at.

[Cappuccino]

dd2 says there is 'no milk in your feeds now mummy' (unsurprisingly ) and for the first time is trying to get herself to sleep

I am sitting on the end of the bed listening to her wail "I want to go in your bed" over and over again

if it wasn't dark I would probably be able to see her tearstained red face but as it is she is a fleece-covered dark blur

tell me jokes

find me pictures of Kiefer Sutherland with no top on

this could be a long night

good luck capp-
hope she settles down soon

help me

she is hysterical

Twig says to pat and shush but not to talk or give eye contact but she is screaming and shouting and v upset

she is not settling and I don't want to back down but I don't know what to dooooooo

I so wish I could help more , Im rubbish with this sort of thing , I crumble badly. Unfortunately I think this part is the worst.

Ive just had to go up and down to dd2 who wont settle well at the moment. Shes a dummy addict , post breast feeding and wont settle withought it now.

Keep your nerve, Cappucino. This is so hard, you did so much better than me, dd's both weaned off night feeds at 2, so they weren't quite so able to put their case.

Breathe...

ok its taken over 10 mins to load one mp3 track to hotmail , will be better to send you 4 emails or try and load them to the one ????? Ive not done this before.

oh melsy I'm sorry I didn't mean to cause you so much of a problem

just send me one don't worry about the others

she has gone down to little pitiful sobs now which I think is a good thing, tho heartbreaking

do whatever you think is right to comfort your child, of course

it is fine to give her whatever comfort she needs, she is small, and night times are scary without another person there, and weaning is hard and a big deal, and she isn't doing anything naughty or wrong

if I was upset and scared and someone tried to shh me without making eye contact I think I would get hysterical myself tbh

and yet ..... in three days time ......

Hang on in there, the upset is because of the change of routine, not because of you. xx

Ds is 3 and what works really well with him at the moment is to just go in and say, "Are you feeling sad and cross? (yes) Is that because you want x, y and z? (yes) Would youy like a mummy cuddle? (yes)"

Gives him somewhere to go, he knows I know how he is feeling so he doesn't have to keep screaming about it and then we make a plan to do something else later/in the morning etc. Have been able to head off some proper tantrums by doing this.

She is bound to be knackered by now so if you can get her down off the ceiling, she may just drop off.

But, I may have this completely wrong so feel free to ignore!!

Franny I see what you are saying but I can't do it, I haven't got it in me

feeding her was easy and quick and that was its main advantage for me. I haven't asked her to wean, she just didn't want it

I don't have the strength to spend all night comforting her because I'm usually in bed by 9pm myself due to my crap health at the moment - usually by this time of night the room is starting to spin

dh did go in to comfort her but he won't be here in a week

I think she has gone off now

ahh no bother at all , Im not sitting waiting , Im downing wine and surfing net!!

Just didnt want to make it crash or something when you get it.

frannyandzooey on the other hand - weaning isn't always hard - lots of kids [like my ds1 at 14mths] self wean without fuss. the night isn't necessarily scary - my 3 shout if they can see light under the door - they prefer pitch black - as do i. really in the dark - eye contact isn't that relevent and she'll know it's her parent giving her a pat and putting her back to the place she wakes up/plays in every day at past her bed time - so isn't that ok? she may be scared,but it sounded more pissed off at change of routine to me - but then we're both projecting emotion on to a child we don't know. i know you're coming from a concerned/caring/supportive place as ,i hope, am i. good luck cappucinno

no melsy it won't crash

I'll send you mine back across a few mails so I don't crash yours - I don't know how well hotmail handles attachments

sally thanks - I know I'm doing the right thing really, but you can't help having a bit of a dither

I didn't expect her to suddenly not want to know about feeding - I honestly hadn't thought there had been any milk there for months anyway - but when she did I knew it had to be sorted out quick with dh going away

yes lucky you are right about being more pissed off than upset

when I think about it she was just as hysterical at 8am when dh refused to give her a Mini Roll

Mini roll denial always warrants hysteria in my world

Capp I am sorry if what I said didn't help,

I had no idea you were specifically trying to get her to sleep on her own without you there and that everyone else knew this

(how did everyone else know this? It doesn't say so on this thread, just that you have no milk left and she was upset at bedtime and you were sitting with her)

I thought you were being told you had to be tough and you didn't want to be

are you alright?

have reread my post

I still stand by it, I think you should do whatever you feel you need to do to comfort her

which is what you have done, isn't it? You gave her what comfort you felt she needed given that you are trying to get her to go to sleep by herself. I hope it goes well. I know new routines are hard and especially wearing for you with your health and energy levels. If it helps at all, we firmly encouraged ds to get to sleep on his own at this age by popping in and out of the room for longer and longer periods, and then going downstairs for a bit, etc etc. It took ages but was achieved with no upset. There was 2 of us and we were in decent health though so I do understand if you need something more quick.

yes franny I am fine don't worry, you made me feel a bit sad but then I am not at my best this time of night anyway, and I am a bit sad at my little girl growing up

I did sleep training with dd1 without a worry so I don't have any ethical/ emotional problems with it, but I was not ill then and things were different - because of her disability we were always wanting to encourage her independence and each stage of that was a celebration, rather than something to be wistful about

it was a bit of a snap decision tbh but it was the right thing to do; Twig et al just helped me clarify what I was doing which was helpful because I was a bit lost and tired and had forgotten what to do

hopefully tomorrow night will be easier

Maybe it's time to enlist her help to buy something 'grown-up' for her bedroom? To mark the passing of babydom. (I don't mean now, I mean in the morning!). Or work out a new routine.
Giving up bfeeding is very sad. DD2 16mo is down to first and last thing now with occasionaal naptime feeds and didn't even have the first feed yesterday, resulting in even less today. I can see the end in sight...

I am very sorry it made you sad Capp, I think I was writing from a different perspective not realising what was happening, and you obviously were reading it thinking I was having a go

do the things that feel right for you at each stage, based on your situation

you can do this in a slightly more gentle way though or you can do it in a very forthright way - I know time and energy are important here - but the mention of no eye contact makes me uncomfortable - I know your dd is used to responsive and gentle treatment and I think she would find that frightening, not calming

I am not there in the middle of it though

shitemum she has a new thing - her bed, which came at Christmas; she was in a cot before

her grandma bought her a Dora the Explorer duvet so the room has moved on from the Cath Kidston type thing I had going on before (well I had a bit of bunting and a chair)

I wanted to wean her then but she was still keen on her feeds and I thought that the bed might be enough of a change

it is better this way I am pig sick of bf-ing tbh - I'll admit I wasn't at 16ms, but at 3 it was getting a bit wearing, it meant I could never put dd1 to bed and she really wants to me listen to her read and read her a story but I'm always stuck upstairs with my boobs out in the dark

I can't do no eye contact either Franny