advice welcome for waking baby , at wits end tbh

[spongecake]

my ds has always been wakeful and is bf although he eats 3-4 big meals a day, like weetabix, roast chicken, spag bol etc. I offer him milk but he isn;t interested. he drinks loads of water though.

he is getting very difficult to put to bed, dragging the routine out and goes berserk when i finally leave him- i pick him up and he insists on bf again to sleep.

he wakes about 2-3 times in the night to bf, and/ or just cuddle with mummy. makes no difference if dh does it (apart from no bf!)

he wakes up at abot 7, which is ok, and has breakfast - he doesn;t want to bf.

we are at our wits end and my dh says he and i will be ill soon. if i try not to pick him up , he gets really hysterical, and if i say come on bedtime he just shouts no! at me.
he cries really pathetically and screams fit to burst if i leave even for a minute

i really don't know what to do. he is such a happy baby normally, and sleeps for about an hour during the day.

How old is he. spongecake?

sorry, 14 months

I don't have any advice really, just to say that Hasan is similar in that he breastfeeds to sleep and is very clingy to me and asserting himself alot by crying crossly when he doesn't get his own way. I think this is the natural stage they are at.

I try to avoid battles of will.

I don't give in to him but side step the issue and distract him, ie if he is playing when he should be going to sleep I just take him back down stairs and let him potter and ignore him, then try again later.

I don't take his stroppiness too seriously which I can do because he is my fourth and it's all water off a ducks back to me now!

I really hope yours starts to sleep better soon because I know how horrific sleep deprivation is!

I'm sure someone will come along with some good tips.

My 15 mo was like this and now i have found that if i just leave her ( checking to see that she hasn't just strangled herself on the cot) she does go back to sleep on her own. it's really hard to let her just scream but actually i've decided she's just cross she's still awake and wants to go back to sleep. i kept giving in and giving her a bottle so i could get some sleep but now i have been brave - she really doesn't need the milk - and it seems to have worked. Also have got her out of the grobag, might be connected although the leaving her to it happened after the grobag so i think it was the latter. It isn't easy but it is worth it in the long run, I have 2 other DC who were waking from the screaming.
I do feel for you, i am getting uninterrupted sleep now ( in the last 4 days) for the first time in over 15 months - DD1 was waking in the night before DD2 was born - its strange but I'm more tired today than I normally am.Good luck.