dd relys on me to sleep, I need to go back to work, best course of action?

[wonderstuff]

She used to use a dummy or crash out on a walk or sometimes just drift of when I put her down, but since teething/grtting a bit older she demands me and will only drift off when bfing! If she is denied it she crys and becomes very distressed, I've tried leaving her with my mum, but had to return because she couldn't settle her, got to spend day away on sat and go back to work in 3 weeks. Would like to feed am and pm, but thinking may have to go cold turkey?? Any advice/ideas? she will take a bottle during meals, but not when shes tired

I work 4 days a week. My dd (18 months) falls asleep bfing with me. When she is with dh she will nap if dh rocks her or lying on his arm (if very tired).

Sometimes he has to resort with driving her up to the tea hut in the forest (20 minute drive), she falls asleep and he sits with the windows open drinking tea and reading till she wakes up .

She'll have to work her own way out - not sure what you can do. Dh uses the same lullaby tape that I use when bfing her at night.

Other things that help is to go for the nap after she has eaten and done a poo, clean dry nappy.

Thanks fondant, she doesn't even sleep on car journeys any more, I don't want the childminder to have to deal with an inconsoleable child, not sure if I should give up bf before I go back, or if I could somehow gradually wean her off day time bf??

How old is she?

Just hit 6 months

I've just had something similar. DS is 7 months. A month ago he was fed to sleep, only took short naps and I ended up co-sleeping every night. Last night he slept from 8pm-7am. This is what I did.

Self-setting. To get him to self-settle in his cot I used a plan from Millpond's sleep book. You follow each of the steps below for 3 days for naps and at bedtime. Step 1: Rock baby to sleep. Step 2: Cuddle baby to sleep without rocking. 3: Cuddle baby to sleep in cot. 4: Pat baby to sleep in cot. 5: Shush baby to sleep. Once the baby is asleep you have to wait a few mins before setting them down. This took some patience but really paid off. Now, I put him down, give him his blanket and he goes off happily.

Daytime breastfeeding. I set a Saturday and decided that I wasn't going to breastfeed during the day anymore. It wasn't anywhere near as hard as I thought as he was on solids and so didn't need so much milk. I tried to distract him - having the TV on helped - and then he would take some milk from a cup or eat a ricecake. I then breastfed as normal in the evening and in the morning. If you need to go out on Saturday, I'd try and get through tomorrow without breastfeeding during the day.

Night feeds. You didn't say whether this is an issue, but this really made a big difference. Once he was self-settling at bedtime, I tried to cut out night feeds by scheduling feedtimes. This meant that I decided that he would be fed no earlier than midnight, 3:30am and 7am. If he woke up earlier, which he did on the first night, I did controlled crying. This was the hardest part but saw really big dividends. Having scheduled feeds also meant he didn't cry too long, as I knew that I could feed him once it hit midnight. There were only 2 nights of tears before there was a massive improvement in his sleeping. I didn't start this until he could already go to sleep in his bed by himself as I wanted to make sure he knew where he was.

Hope this helps!

We end up co-sleeping every night too, I'll get up twice, after that I'm took knackered. Thanks for the ideas, how did your lo sleep when you dropped daytime feeds, did he still have day naps?

His day naps got much better as he self-settled. He still has milk (from cup) but he has it after nap not before. He now has 1 hr nap in the morning and almost 2 hrs in the afternoon.

Oooooh don't worry. I went back when DS was 6 months and he still feeds to sleep when I'm there but DP can rock him instead. He doesn't sleep as well as he does for me, but he gets enough most days. They do seem to sort themselves out somehow, try not to worry about it. She doesn't expect anyone else to BF her, only you, so she won't look for it if you aren't there.

It also got a whole lot easier around 7 months, and he can now almost be put down awake on good days (9 months).