Breasted 16 month old toddler - will she ever sleep through the night?

[astarismum]

It is a serious question to all the breastfeeding mums out there. I am so tired and desperately need to know when this is going to change. So my little girl is 16 month old and I still breastfeed her to sleep. I let her fall asleep on me (even though I know I shouldn’t!). If I put her down “awake but drowsy” (like all the sleep books tell you to do) she just screams her head off and I simply don’t want to leave her to cry. So I pick her up and feed again until she falls asleep on me and then transfer into her cot. She is currently a nightmare at night. She wakes up every 1-3 hours and screams. If my husband tries to rock her she screams even louder until I feed her to sleep. From 2-4am I usually give up and bring her to bed and we cosleep until 6-7ish. It is so exhausting not to have evenings or nights to myself. When is she going to sleep through? Do I need to stop breastfeeding altogether so that we can all get some rest? I do want to continue breastfeeding for as long as she wants to do it. When did your breastfed toddlers start sleeping through? Do you let them fall asleep on you? Can you offer any advice or hope please? Being sleep deprived and under the weather at the same time is not great!

This probably goes against what everybody else would say, and it is definitely not the solution you're after, but have you thought about cosleeping?
My son was exactly the same and refused a bottle even when I went on strike. I breastfed him to 3 which I'm glad about (easy life as I found the bottles such a chore with my others). but obviously this solution is it for everyone.

I fed my first until 2 years 9 months and my second is 3 and still not weaned.
Both we only waking once or twice at that age and my second usually slept through.
I found that they had to eat enough during the day to not be relying on me at night. Breast milk is quickly digested so if they’re hungry they then walk up wanting more.
Make sure she eats plenty throughout the day and has a good dinner and supper before bed. When she wakes first give her some food before you feed her. My eldest would have an Ella’s pouch of stew. My youngest prefers crackers and give a drink. Then I feed back to sleep.
Three year old often wakes once in the night but not every night.

I do cosleep a bit as well sometimes I get out of bed and leave her and go and sleep in a different bed. Sometimes she will wake up and come and find me, other times she’ll sleep through.

Thanks for your reply! Cosleeping doesn't work for us unfortunately. My DD wakes up even more when she is next to me and I feel even worse in the morning. She also loves squeezing my nipples and patting my head and honestly it feels like I am being tortured at night. We do cosleeping in the 2nd part of the night but it is still exhausting...

Thanks for your reply! How old is she?

That's interesting! My little one doesn't eat much really and that's another problem that is stressing me out. She will eat a little bit and then start throwing food on the floor and crying until breastfed. She seems to be very sensitive to pain and any time she is teething she loses her appetite. If I offer any food at night she just pushes everything away and breast if the only things she seems to want. She won't settle with cuddles, patting, shushing, lullabies etc. We've tried everything!

My youngest that I’m still feeding is 3 years and 3 months. I did feed her to sleep in one bed and then roll out and sleep in a different bed when she was just over 12 months. She could get out of bed without falling out and could walk. I did used to remove the pillows etc way beyond 12 months though.

Essentially I fed what the child would eat to ensure food was eaten rather than bf. So if I had to cook fish fingers everynight I did. Once they start eating more the range of food expands. So long as it’s fairly filling don’t worry what the food is.

My LO was like this when 15 months old. Long split nights, screaming, multiple wakes. I breastfed for hours every night. Bottle refuser. I was on my absolute knees. Back at work. Then I got sepsis. Was hospitalised for a week and bed rest for 2 weeks after discharge. My husband did all the nights, offered milk with a straw. After 2 weeks her sleep significantly improved and split nights stopped when I was still in hospital. Being forced into stopping feeding improved everything. I wasn't planning on giving up but seeing the results and how settled she got without milk frenzy was enough to make me realise that having sepsis really had its upsides.

Look up Dr Jay Gordon Night weaning-
its a gentle approach designed for breastfeeding mums.

All of mine were closer to 3 than 2, sorry to say…

You need to break the sleep / feed association. she’s confused because she falls asleep on mummy then wakes up somewhere else.

feed her before bath / pyjamas in a brightly lit room, then do bedtime routine, put her in cot, night night and leave. Leave her for a few mins at a time, she’ll cry, go back and reassure her without picking her up. Repeat repeat. Eventually she’ll fall asleep (first night will be hard though). For night wakings, send dad in with a sippy cup of water. Offer drink, then do the same as bedtime - night night and leave, return every few mins to pat and reassure.

she’ll be sleeping through within a week and you don’t have to stop BF

You say that you "need to know when this is going to change" - it's only going to change if you change it. If you don't want to feed at night then you need to nightwean - this can be done gently, but at 16 months is unlikely to be done without any tears, so it depends on whether you want to passively wait until she grows out of it (which could take years), or you have to actively change what you are doing.

I think it sounds like there is a bigger issue with your DD not eating food in the day but preferring to be breastfed. Given her age she should be well established on 3 meals a day by now. I agree with the PP - serve her whatever it takes to get her into the habit of eating more food as it sounds like she's too reliant on breast milk and that isn't healthy for her at this age. So the first task is to get her eating. Then when she's eating more food in the day, you can think about night weaning/cutting back the number of feeds at night.

And in case I sound negative, I'm certainly not. I am currently tandem feeding my 32 month and 4 month olds so I am a massive advocate of extended breastfeeding. But after 12 months it has to come secondary to food, and I do think if they haven't started settling at night by now it may be time to force the issue. This is what non-breastfeeding partners are for!

In my experience no they do not sleep through until they’ve stopped breastfeeding UNLESS you very clearly break any association between sleep and milk which you haven’t yet done. I fed DD1 until 20 months and DD2 until 26 months and I always fed them to sleep and back to sleep when they woke at night. Neither of them woke less than 3-4 times a night (and DD2 was often more like 5-6) until they weaned. Within two weeks they were sleeping through.

I am a huge breastfeeding advocate but it does annoy me that people who are very “pro” breastfeeding are not particularly upfront about this aspect of toddler behaviour. I know numerous breastfed toddlers and none sleep remotely “well”. People often say “sleep is developmental it’s not about breastfeeding” which is true to an extent when you’re talking about 6 month olds but once they’re over one, the vast majority of non-BF toddlers sleep through whereas I’d say the majority of breastfed toddlers do not. It might be different if you were very scheduled and boundaried with feeds but if not, they don’t sleep. I tried nightweaning both of mine and it was a disaster. Just had to stop feeding on demand and then eventually go cold turkey to get either of them to sleep.

Needless to say I’m expecting DC3 soon and although I will be breastfeeding I will also express and bottle feed and I will wean before I go back to work. Being woken up 5+ times a night for 2 years is not conducive to good mental health in my experience!

And yes I’d also say you need to stop feeding on demand during the day otherwise she just won’t eat and will only want milk

DD1 was ff and stopped waking for milk around 13 months, instead just woke up to party. She slept through around 2.5 yrs but not reliably.

DD was bf and stopped having milk over night at around 3 when I told her if she kept waking me up for milk we would have to stop bf and then she started sleeping through.

A couple of years down the line and neither reliably sleep through.

Try getting your lo to cosleep next to Dad. They get reassurance but not milk. And you get sleep.

My DS did the same thing at that age. Maybe your DD just isn’t ready? I didn’t really push anything, he just gradually woke less and less and then eventually slept through. My DH started putting him to bed once or twice a week at around 2 years old which I think helped. At first I’d take over at the very end so that they both got used to eachother at bedtime then after a few weeks they didn’t need me on those evenings anymore.

As previous posters have said - make sure they eat something h filling before bed. Porridge with banana worked well for us.

I always fed to sleep. Just laid down to feed and then rolled away. Any night wakes after I’d gone to bed, I brought him into our bed and fed as often as required.

At about 15-17 months night wakes went from 1-3hrly to once or twice a night. This directly coincided with us limiting daytime sleep.

At about 23 months he started sleeping through about 50% of the time, was still feeding to sleep at bedtime and any night wakes.

At 25 months he stopped feeding to sleep at bedtime and we cuddle instead and listen to audiobooks. He now sleeps through about 70% of the time and wakes once for water/cuddle the rest of the time.

Everyone is different but they do sometimes just surprise you with what they’ll suddenly start doing.

Op same here... baby is turning 1 soon. I started implementing patting while feeding. I don't know how to wean off night feeds as he now screams if not given boob( until jot long ago i was able to at least rock him to sleep). I don't want to do controlled crying. I went through so many conflicting info.. 😩

She's probably not eating much in the day because she's filling up with milk at night so it's a vicious cycle.
My breast fed son stopped feeding in the night at 13 months. I think I (unintentionally) night weaned him. I had to have an operation therefore couldn't sleep with him for a week (I was on pain killers and we are cosleepers) and he slept with his dad. First couple of nights he woke up a couple times but then slept through!
He's still not the best sleeper though as in he wakes very early and doesn't go to bed till late some nights but he does generally sleep through. I'm exhausted and I feel like exhaustion is just my permanent state now.
You are absolutely doing nothing wrong by comforting your child though with breast feeding and it's still totally normal to feed in the night at that age. But I would suggest trying to night wean if you can't cope (could you sleep in another room for a week and husband do the night wakes?).
My son feeds morning nap and nighttime and finding it impossible to wean him. I wish I'd stopped breast feeding much earlier but he'd never take a bottle. Hes nearly 2 now and the breast feeding aversion is so strong.

How did you wean him if you don't mind me asking? Trying with my 22 month old and he cries so much too bed fed and just refuses his nap and bed time if I don't feed him. I'm at the stage now where I really dislike feeding him

Chiming in as it might be useful for anyone currently in this situation. I also got fed up with the poor sleep and bf’ing, so night weaned at 10 months when my baby was eating 3 good meals a day.

We night weaned by cosleeping, she would wake and cry but we would give her the comfort of being there with her until she fell back asleep. Sometimes I also slept further down the bed so she wouldn’t sense me str8 away but dad was there for a cuddle. At first I would only feed her at 3 hour intervals at night and then increased that interval. At the same time, I got hubby to do some of the day time naps so she would learn to sleep without the milk.

After 2-3 weeks of all this she stopped waking up for milk. I would still feed her 3/4 times throughout the day but not on demand. Around 11 months I dropped to 1/2 feeds and by 12 months I dropped to one bedtime feed only. She’s 14 months now has slept through the night since night weaning (unless she’s sick/too hot/too cold obv!)

Yes, we snuggled up in my bed, BF to sleep. Toddler slept beside me, nursed on and off when they needed. Age 3 they became dry at night and slept through. I'm really glad we did it that way, multiple times after they BF a lot it became evident that it was a bug starting or a huge developmental leap. They BF through chicken pox, hand foot and mouth and noro, and the 2 year molars. At the time it was rough but a few days later when symptoms showed or they suddenly started doing new things I could see why it'd happened.

We are at 16m now and at around 13m I started limiting night feeds to once per night unless he was unwell or teething. We are lucky in that dad can settle him overnight with a cuddle but this took some patience and tears. He also eats well in the day. Until last week or so he was fed to sleep still for naps and bed, transferred asleep and had started only waking once, or sleeping through. Depending on the time of the wake he would be fed or cuddled back to sleep. However in the last 2 weeks he pushes away from being fed to sleep or cuddled so I settle him in his cot, and leave once he's asleep. This hasn't led to him sleeping better, if anything it's worse as he hasn't slept through once since then. I'm anxious about night weaning as I can't settle him back down without a feed and I feel it's a lot to ask of my partner to do every wake (as we split them currently) if weaning doesn't have the positive impact we hope for.

I stopped breastfeeding at 9 months when I went back to work. We never co slept, she had her moses basket then went In to her own room at 4 months in a cot. When she was old enough and her tummy was big enough to take enough milk to get her through the night, we stopped night feeds and if she woke, we'd place a hand gently on her chest to settle her without picking her up.

Hey OP, interested to see how you got on as I'm in a similar boat! Thanks :)