Night 3 of no milk was hell.....

[buttercupbabs]

Night weaning using @JayGordonMDFAAP method.

Last night was night three of no milk and my DS 16 months cried ALL night!

Can anyone send me any hope? Success? Positive stories? Does it actually get easier?

One very tired Mumma x

So did my son, it was the dentist who advised against that as he had decay on his tooth from night time bottles. Once we offered water he stopped waking after initially grumbling about it.

LOL@ duty of care !

oh @buttercupbabs we were exactly. I made a massive mistake at work and nearly got sacked I was so broken.

I went to the GP with what I thought was severe PND but he said it was being bloody knackered , buy the Ferber book, do it and then if I still felt low go back.

Once he was sleeping I was I new woman, he was happier, my other kids had a much better mum and I wondered why I waited so long.

Every time he feed at night I wanted to scream/pull my skin off, my mental health was suffering so so much.

You do you OP, maybe set yourself a time frame to reassess, say after a week it's absolutely no better see if there's anything you can tweak.

Wow, the posters on this thread not getting that some kids are different from others. OP, I nightweaned my eldest at 18 months for exactly the same reason: co-sleeping, waking every 30mins for a feed, no one getting enough sleep. I only remember one or two really bad nights, then she was fine. It's not cruel, it's just breaking a habit. I will warn you, it didn't solve things completely. At three, she still wakes at least once a night for a cuddle and some water, but miles better than it was.

By contrast, my son (also ebf) slept through from 11 months and will wake looking for milk once in a blue moon when he's teething. I'm in no hurry to nightwean him although he's now 18 months too. Some kids are different than others, and lack of sleep is torture. Do what works for you and ignore the ridiculous posters who think you should be up all night with a toddler hanging off you for the rest of time.

I second the Ferber method.

It's what she needed and it was my duty to cater to her needs ha! My 4year old moans me for chocolate all the time- there’s no duty there. There’s an individual bigger picture for every family to consider, a half dead mother and a cranky baby from waking is no good for anyone

Clearly if you're on your own during the week, back at work and being woken multiple times during the night, you need to get this sorted. You are not a robot and your DC will be no better off with a mother who has a breakdown through exhaustion. I hope tonight goes well and you get some sleep.

Just to add, we started using the same method as you but after a couple of nights I thought it was confusing her more than helping and just went cold turkey. Made sure she had a big feed before bedtime, wore a high-necked onesie to bed with a sports bra underneath to minimise access, gave water and lots of cuddles in the night. She screamed the place down (and we live in a flat, so I had to go apologise to the neighbours) but it was because she was annoyed not because she needed something, by this age you can tell the difference. Once she got with the new plan she was fine.

They definitely say that the third night is the worse.

However there is a middle path. We did a gradual withdrawal method where we increased the time between feeds by 15 minutes every 3 days. So DS1 was waking every hour and a half so initially I would only feed up every hour and three quarters, then every two hours, etc. It did take longer and still involved some crying but I found it more manageable. I find people can be very black and white when it comes to sleep training and it does not need to be.

We also did gradual withdrawal to teach him to sleep in his own bed. Again it took a while but made a huge difference.

The key thing though is to do what is best for your family. A sleep deprived parent is not good for anybody.

Hope tonight goes well OP.

It sounds like this is the right thing for your family. Wishing you well

Have you tried stopping the co sleeping?

I'm old so my advice is probably out of date, but I don't understand the 'night weaning' but still feeding in the daytime/before bed as baby still knows it's available. In my day (three boys totally breastfed, never had bottle and two of whom were terrible sleepers til 4 years old😭) I slowly reduced in the daytime as they were eating more food, then stopped altogether (at about 10-11months) first one accidentally as he fell asleep one night without it after a long day out so took the opportunity to stop altogether. They had all forgotten totally about it within a week but if baby is still breastfed to sleep then it is going to prolong the process as he/she is not going to forget about it and be very annoyed at it not being available when they wake in the night. You must be totally exhausted trying to work as well, could you take a week off work and wean totally. If possible if your partner could take a week off work too and you left him to sleep with baby I'm sure the process would be much easier and you could get some much needed sleep💐

No real advice OP, but if last night was really awful then maybe that's the turning point and tonight will be better and tomorrow night even better again. Sounds like worst night has passed.

Op is this the third night of no milk or the third night of the method (actuallyfirst night of no milk)? If the latter don't worry tomorrow tonight will be much easier. If it is actually the third night of no milk then perhaps this isn't the right time? I saw you've only just gone back to work? Baby is bound to be very unsettled for a month or so during this period and probably waking more than usual for reassurance that you're there. I'd wait until they've stopped crying at nursery drop off then try again. You've done nothing wrong trying this now but there is no need to make it harder on you both than it needs to be.

To all those saying this is cruel and like cry it out please do some research into Jay Gordon and this method. It isn't this at all. It's intended to be done whilst maintaining co-sleeping and is just comforting your child in a different way.

You go right ahead and laugh.

Crikey, this sounds like very hard work. I gave mine a dummy and formula fed them. They slept through the night from 8 weeks. I was back to work as a hospital doctor from when they were 4 months, and couldn’t have handled that sort of sleep deprivation - I had enough of that as a junior doing 100 hour weeks!

This is essentially what we did to night wean - gradually extending the time between feeds. If she woke up before a certain amount of time asleep then we would try to settle her in other ways. I'd say it maybe took a couple of weeks and then she was largely sleeping through without any.

Crikey. Some of you are awful! He's SIXTEEN months not six! At sixteen months, they don't need round the clock nutrition. It's far better to start teaching them that nighttime is for resting and sleeping. Not completing full sleep cycles is much more detrimental to growth and development than not being allowed to breastfeed in sips all through the night at 16 months. It's a habit this little boy has and mum doesn't want to be an all night snack bar. That's ok. And if little boy doesn't want to take milk from a bottle or have any water, that's also ok. Nobody is being cruelly denied sustenance.