When did your breastfed toddler start sleeping longer stretches at night?

[Newuser9]

Urgh. I am exhausted.

My toddler is 14 months and has literally slept more than 4 hours perhaps twice in their life. I am on wake up number 5 as I type tonight!

If you have exclusively breastfed and not done any parent led weaning. When did your little one start to sleep longer stretches? I don't even expect "through the night" I'd even be happy with at least 1, 4 hour stretch a night 😭 is there light at the end of the tunnel?

Same situation, currently awake feeding my 14 month old. My eldest went from waking every 2-3 hours to sleeping through the night as soon as I stopped breastfeeding at 24 montha. I suspect my second will do the same although I am planning on weaning slightly earlier (I want to sleep again!)

So no, only parent led weaning worked for me! I’ve never fancied sleep training

Thanks so much for your reply, I am the same I do not want to do any sleep training.

Thank you for the solidarity. It does make it easier knowing I'm not alone x

As soon as I night weaned at 14 months, she slept through. Life is so much better now I can sleep again.

I don't know what the answer is without parent led weaning, unfortunately. We're still breastfeeding in the day at almost 18 months now. Night weaning was nowhere near as difficult as I thought it would be, for either of us. She's much happier with the extra sleep too.

Two breast fed babies who slept through the night at six months (baby one) and 6 weeks (baby 2). I made a massive effort to make sure babies met their calorie needs during the day and that seemed to do the trick for sleeping through. I thought of it as “filling the tank” during the day.

At your toddlers age they shouldn’t need to eat in the night. Are they eating enough during day? Are they wanting to nurse at night for meals or for comfort?

i day weaned about 14 months, at that point she was on about 2 wakes. Then my husband would go in for the first wake and cuddle her back to sleep, then I fed for the second wake about 4/5am. By 18 months she’d stopped the first wakes and often now sleeps through: we never did any sleep training. We did get a floor bed at about 14 months so we could lie with her rather than hold and transfer to the cot. I wouldn’t claim this has helped but it’s much easier on our backs! I don’t think parent led weaning has to equal sleep training. I’d be looking at day sleep for a toddler thst wakes so much - going to 1 nap and keeping it as short as they can tolerate. Mine is 18 months and we cap her nap at 45 mins.

Mine is 1.5 and still driving us mad with the awful sleep. Ive basically got night feeds down to 1 a night, occasionally 2 however now they've started waking crying for hours at the first wake when DH attempts to comfort them. So idk if that's confusing them further and completely night weaning would be better?! I really don't know.

I remember googling the same thing at that age. We had a 4hr block at the start of the night (if we were lucky!) and then wake ups ever 2hrs after that. At 18mo I night weaned, didn't want to initially but it had become clear that boob was a sleep prop as LO was clearly quite frustrated to be awake AGAIN (you and me both pal). I spent a few weeks beforehand effectively role playing it, explaining LO's teddies have gone to sleep and didn't need booby, pointing out sleeping dogs on the street or characters in books and asking if they needed booby etc. Worked a treat, no word of a lie we went from broken sleep to sleeping through the next day. I still remember feeling tired to my bones, you will sleep one day, promise!

I night weaned at 6 months (though all three had periods of sleeping through before then). Just got DH to out them to sleep for a few nights if they woke up and broke the boob/sleep link. Made sure never to feed them to sleep as well from as young as possible.

We did this too. Was getting long first stretch but after night weaning/offering dad comfort instead he began to sleep through fairly often (with peaks and troughs), until 2.5 when it all went to hell. Never sleep trained, always cuddled to sleep if not BF

What’s the sleeping situation? Are they in their own room, or co-sleeping? If in their own room, do you have a partner who can go in and settle them, maybe with water, rather than you feeding?

I think with both children it was between the 14-15 month mark when they started sleeping with only one night wake up for breast milk. By 16 months, I’d had enough, full time work on broken sleep was taking its toll and husband had started going in with some water for the night wake up . Initially, they weren’t happy with this, but sticking to it for two weeks meant that they then started sleeping through. So by 18months, they were both sleeping through. Both would wake up at around 6am and I’d just bring them in to our bed for a snuggle and morning breast feed whilst we slept.The two weeks husband went in at night were rough (15 minutes of crying etc before going back to sleep) at the time those 15 minutes felt torturous but I was determined to stick to my guns. They were both eating very well during the day and waking for breast milk at that time was just a habit that needed to be broken. Since from around that time there hasn’t been issues with either of them, other than the odd night terror. I think we’ve been very lucky with this!

Yeah mine didn’t sleep through until I weened at night and weened off the dummy too.

Neither of them slept through until I stopped breastfeeding at night.

Apparently give them a spoon of butter before bed works - grass fed and salt free. Apparently the fat keeps their brain satiated. Mines allergic to dairy so can’t try it

My first DD slept through -ie, about six hours - from about six weeks. My second DD took a bit longer.

The honest answer for me is when I stopped breastfeeding (13 months with the eldest and 2.5 years with the second). As soon as I stopped they slept through. Ths rest of the time the eldest was was up around every 2 hours, youngest would occassionally have a 4-6 hour stretch but up at least 3 times a night.

Mine EBF based slept through 8-6am from 6-10 weeks. They would however, naturally, cluster feed from 5pm-8pm

When sleep wasn’t as great for my eldest when he was a toddler (they’ve never have any milk overnight since 8 weeks old), my health visitor advised high carb before dinner so mine would have porridge as pudding after dinner. That worked well.

When I stopped feeding to sleep and let her dad put her to bed, her sleep drastically improved. This was close to two years, and she self-weaned shortly after.

Obviously you have to do what is right for you and your family, and what you feel comfortable with.

But, your baby doesn't know that your objective is for them to sleep longer. It's not a goal they are working towards. So if you don't feel ready to do anything to encourage this yourself, it's unlikely to change. (Hope that makes sense).