18 month old no longer feeds to sleep

[BraceFace92]

Since he was born, I’ve always fed my baby to sleep. However, in recent weeks he no longer seems to get the sleepy effect of breastfeeding, and he’ll feed and then want to play on the floor or mess around. I have no problem with him no longer wanting to feed to sleep, I’ve been trying to gently wean him off of breastfeeding for a while, but I just don’t know how to now get him asleep. It sounds so silly but we’ve never had to do anything else before so I’m just clueless. We’ve tried laying hi. Down in the cot and reading him a story but he screams the whole time. If I lie down with him in my bed he just wants to play and seems wide awake. We’ve driven him around a couple of times and that sometimes works but don’t really want to get into the habit. Last night we gave up around 9pm and put a Disney film on and he eventually climbed on top of me and passed out, but I know that screen time at bedtime is meant to be bad for them.

how do you get a toddler to sleep?! I feel like I’ve made a rod for my own back, but everyone’s always said how natural and soothing feeding to sleep is so I just carried on with it thinking I was doing the best thing for him. He has never taken to a dummy or a lovey teddy no matter how many times I’ve tried over the last year or so.

Both of mine apparently would like down and put themselves to sleep at nursery but not at home (well DS did when he was about 3, DD is nearly 18 months and doesn't yet). Apart from feeding to sleep, these days would work at least some of the time:

Walk in the pram
Walk in the carrier
Sleepy music on and rocking to sleep (DD)
Dance music on and bop around the living room (DS. He never wanted to sleep and more or less had to be tricked into it)

DD is just 2, and since about 18 months we’ve done the bedtime routine, then put her on her cot with a tonne of toys and books. She plays in there for a bit then settles down to sleep. She goes on phases of whether we can leave her to it/ pop in and out/ stay, but basically ignoring her. I’d assume you’d need to stay with her for a little bit, and it might take a while the first few nights as she might not realise she’s meant to sleep and you basically have to wait for her to pass out. But she’ll get it eventually!

I've made this transition with both of my dc. My advice is to do story time with him in the place you would have fed him (we had a feeding chair in the bedroom). It's then still a familiar routine. Wait until he's settled and calm. Put him in the cot and carry on reading so he can look at the pictures through the cot bars. You might need to stay with him until he falls asleep for a week or so. Once this routine was established I gradually left when they were sleepy but awake. Now my husband can settle the youngest fully too. I introduced a toy comforter to help with this transition. My dd happened to choose one when we were out shopping one day. With my ds I took him specifically to choose one. They love their little animals and snuggle down with them each night. I think it helped them to replace cuddling me to sleep.

You need to teach him to fall asleep. Do your bed time routine same time as normal. Lay him in cot, dark room no talking. if he gets up/cry’s lay him back down. Put your hand gently on his on his chest and stay unto he falls asleep. You may have to lay him down a few times. Do that every night until he starts to automatically drop off.Then start to reduce contact so instead of your hand on his chest put your finger s on his arm. Then next night no touching but be next to the bed. Then further away from the bed and eventually he falls asleep independently.

This way if he wakes in the night he knows how to put himself to sleep.

Does he need to drop a nap?

Thanks everyone, I’ve been using some of the tips and the last two nights he’s slept a bit better so fingers crossed we’re making progress 🙏🏻