How to get 11 month old breastfed baby to stop waking at night

[Jvmumma]

Hiya, I have an 11 month old breastfed baby who still wakes at least 3 times a night to nurse and after almost a year, I am ready for him to start sleeping more or at least dropping 1 of these feeds.
He does nurse to sleep, he cannot self settle and I know this would help if I could get him to. The thing is I am against leaving him to cry and do not know where to start with getting him to self settle when he has nursed to sleep for his whole life. Anyone had a similar experience and managed it?
He is my third child but my first 2 were not still waking at this point.

Thanks in advance

Not sure if you've already tried this, but what worked for us when our daughter was like this at about 13 months old was, if she woke crying, I would pick her up and hold her, taking her to a different room, rather than my wife holding her or feeding. She did cry when I held her, for probably 20 minutes (felt like 4 hours), but did eventually fall asleep on me then I put her back in her cot. Did this for 3 or 4 days and she stopped waking at night. No idea if it works for other children or would have worked when she was younger - we had to get it sorted as my wife was starting to go back to work and multiple night wakes were unsustainable with early starts in the morning as well. We were also not comfortable leaving her to cry but me holding instead of her was ok.

We managed this at a similar age with me sleeping in the spare room and my DH managing DD. He'd bring her through to me when genuinely hungry and otherwise settle her with cuddles. Took a while but gradually went down to 1 feed, then none.

Thank you both very much, this sounds like a good idea and something we could do without upsetting him too much.
My husband can rock him to sleep on the odd nap time and he does go off if he has had a feed so maybe this would go better than I'd expect too.

@MrDobbs I have also been back at work for 2 months now and it's getting quite difficult to concentrate enough when I'm up every couple of hours in the night so it's definitely the right time to try, hopefully it works, thank you.

@Xmasbabyxmas perfect thank you, I'll sleep downstairs while he tries if he doesn't take too well to me being in the room still or I'll get my husband to leave the room like @MrDobbs did.

Thank you both

https://www.drjaygordon.com/blog-detail/sleep-changing-patterns-in-the-family-bed

this. But I didn’t do it in our bed, as my baby was a horror for feeding at night!

Hello, just wondered if you had any success with the night feeds? I have a 10 month old and really want to be able to have a night off. I’m exhausted. He feeds to sleep before bed too….TIA x

@EminBath hey, I actually didn't end up trying anything, I kept putting it off but he is now 14 months old still breastfeeds but has recently started to sleep through the night and put himself to sleep, totally all led by him, I haven't done anything at all to help him do this he just started sleeping through and putting him to sleep got difficult just on the boob so I started putting him in his cot and he was happy enough to play until he went to sleep.
Sorry I can't be more help but hopefully it does give you hope that there is an end in sight.

One thing I did do though around 11 months was get my husband to start giving him a bottle here and there and also rock him to sleep for me, he would kick off a bit but not much to be honest and it helped him not be so reliant on me, I think if it was always me that went to him still then he'd carry on waking for breast in the night too.

I know how hard it is and I feel you, you are doing an amazing job and I hope you get some rest soon ❤️ xxx