How did your breastfed baby going into their own room affect your own sleep? 💤

[GIow]

DS is 15 months, still wakes for a comfort boob overnight, and we have always co-slept. This has meant that on average, I do tend to get a fairly decent night’s sleep.

DS is growing too long now for the space saver side-car cot, and we don’t have space in our bedroom to sidecar a standard size cot, as they’re too wide, so I’m wondering what our options are.

If we tried to put DS in a floor bed in his room, I just feel I’ll be up and down lots in the night, and it’ll mean I get worse sleep than now, rather than better.

I don’t want to impose night weaning on him yet, I’d rather get through the winter at least before thinking about it.

I’m in need of some ideas please?!

😊

I found that they stopped waking for comfort feeds as soon as they went into their own rooms and we all got much more sleep!

How often is he feeding in the night? My DD was feeding a few times at night when she moved into her own roo. but I was able to go straight back to sleep in my bed after she fed for a few minutes

15 months is a toddler so I had stopped bfing over night by then, I think dd was 8 months or so when I stopped offfering my boob.

Dd was also in her own room by then.

I think you have to make the decision to not feed over night and stick with it 🤷‍♀️ the longer you leave it the harder it is to stop imo.

Mine too! I was dreading it as we coslept and were up multiple times a night but he just didn’t wake. This was at six months

If you have the space in his room, have you perhaps thought about a larger floor bed, that you could also sleep in to breastfeed? Then you can withdraw/wean over time, when you are both ready.

We have a simple 4ft/queen-size futon base and an extra firm, low-profile mattress in my little one's room. It's what works well for us! I love sleeping in here with her, but I also know it's a suitable setup for her solo sleep too, in the future.

If this isn't an option or you want to move away from bedsharing completely, then to save yourself the steps to and from his room, another idea might be a temporary sleep space for you in DS's room/next to his bed/cot -

Firm/lightweight single mattress

Stackable 'sleepover' cushions

Sofa/chairbed

Just some ideas, I hope you find the solution that works best for your family!

Once my DD went into her own room at 12 months, she stopped waking in the night. We carried on with a bedtime BF for another six months.

It was absolutely marvellous to get a full night sleep, then I fell pregnant again.

All 4 of mine were exclusively bf. My kids have about six years diff in age from eldest to youngest… I also worked full time, so by the last child I was absolutely knackered… as was my DH!

I started slowly reducing the breast feeding from the 12m point for each of the children. Only one of them continued until he was about 18m… the other 3 had finished with it within about 2 months of being a year old
Once they start eating proper food they don’t need bf as much anyway.
Consider your own self a bit and try to get a good night’s sleep. My lot are adults now…. DH and I still have weird sleep patterns from the years of not getting a good night’s sleep from when the kids were little!

Thanks all, some really helpful advice and things to thing about!

If I did try him in his own room, I think floor bed would have to be the way forward because I’ve never in my life managed to transfer him into a cot without him waking 🙈

Did any of you try using the cot mattress on the floor first to see how they took to it? I read about someone doing that the other day and thought it sounded a good idea.

On the nights I feed him to sleep in the sidecar, I come downstairs for a bit, he then stirs, wakes and cries out for boob approx every 1.5 hours. That’s what makes me think he wouldn’t just be happy to sleep through in his own room! Once I’m in bed with him he’ll sleep next to me in the sidecar from about 12:30-5 before starting to stir again. Then we’re dozing and he’s feeding on and off (mostly on) from then until around 7.

Do you have space for a bigger floor bed so you can share that with him?