Frequent waking to breastfeed in the evenings at 19mo - anyone else?! 💤

[LooIoo]

DD is nearly 19 months old. Until 17 months we co-slept. In practice this looked like me feeding her to sleep on the sofa then contact napping her for the evening until we went up to bed ourselves. Then we would bed share.

At 16 months we noticed that the evening contact napping wasn’t working for her any more. She would want to turn and move in a way that didn’t really work in my lap. It wasn’t safe to leave her for the evening on our bed as it’s rather high. So we got a floor bed and the transition overall has been going well.

At bedtime, normally around 7:30, my husband will rock her to sleep with a song and a story and then puts her down and lies down with her in the bed for ten mins or so. Then leaves her. (When we go up to bed at around midnight, I will then get in with her.)

The problem I have is how long she sleeps until she wakes up to be resettled - not long at all! (See the attached images - I don’t normally track her wakes but was curious!) When she wakes, she needs either my husband to go in and cuddle her again, or more often, she needs my boob.

I’ve worked out on average for the last few weeks, the first block of sleep is only around 2 hours long. I don’t know how to lengthen this. We’ve introduced brown noise which had a lengthening effect for two nights but not since.

Is this just the norm for a baby who is still breastfed at this age? Is anyone else in the same boat? When does that first stretch get longer?

I use the huckleberry sleep plan section. I do not stick to it rigidly as that just isn't my style but I have taken what works for us and it has been really helpful. We are down from 5 feeds a night to 1/2 stirrings with 1 feed or no feeds at all. The big things for me are the routine, white noise and being as close a possible with the suggested sweetspot naps. At 6months LO finally managed to keep a dummy in independently too which helped 😅

I feel for you OP - the disturbed sleep is horrific, especially over a long period of time x

Does it recommend any form of cry it out?

What is her morning wake time and nap time / duration? I’d say she is lower sleep needs than your current schedule is accounting for. Mine is 18 months and we’ve capped her nap 1 hour, usually 45 mins. Has made a massive improvement ti her night sleep, and she has always been BF on demand. I also found i got much better sleep myself when I deleted that app and didn’t look at my phone at night - the blue light will be disturbing both your and your toddlers sleep.

Hi @Peonies12. She wakes at around 7am. Naps with us are around 1.5 hours; at nursery they can go up to two hours. She’s generally awake for the afternoon by 1:30pm. Nursery say it’s not policy to cap naps and they have to let her sleep.

I haven’t tracked sleep on the app for months and months; I’ve only been doing it recently (last couple of weeks) because I wanted to see the reality of what was happening, but I can’t identify any trends. But don’t worry, I’m usually far too out of it to be logging wake times normally!

The attached is from last night. She was well fed at dinner, so can’t have been hungry, but so many wakings. I’m exhausted today.

At this stage, our babies were offered water in a cup if they woke at night. They were not impressed, but realised after very few (less than 5) nights that this was now the routine. They must have decided it wasn’t worth waking up just for water, and they didn’t wake again(unless for other reasons like illness).

Ah fair enough. This worked for mine although it sounds a bit mad, I’d try capping her night at 11 hours. Most toddlers cant do 1-5-2 hour nap plus nearly 12 hours at night. So maybe bedtime 8pm, and wake her at 7am whatever the night has been like. But im also appalled your nursery won’t wake from naps, we’d honestly have to move elsewhere if our nursery has that policy. Mine is very low sleep needs so any more than 1 hour nap and her night is terrible! Average sleep needs are 11-14 hours within 24 hours so if yours has 2 hour nap, most likely she’ll only need 10-11 hours overnight.

Hmm, that’s very interesting! I hadn’t thought about the total sleep needs like that, as silly as it sounds. And I asked ChatGPT who said that the likely problem was overtiredness!

We’ll try a slightly later bedtime going forward and see how we get on!

overtiredness is a myth in my opinion and just something the 'sleep consultant' community spouts! Babies/kids can get dysregulated (ie upset) if they are tired, mine does, but I don't see this as a bad thing - you want them tired!

We pushed bedtime back to 8:30 last night. The first stretch was 1hr 50 and the second stretch was 2hr 10. (After which, I stopped counting!) So, better than 50 mins or so, but still not ideal. However, we will keep on with it!

That’s good! You have to make a consistent change for a few weeks to see results so keep going and hope it helps.

I have a breastfed 14mo, always got him down in the cot/crib for the first stretch of the night since about 3 months but fed to sleep and transferred. Then when that stopped working, I used to bend over the cot and feed him to sleep on his back! Won me some time on my own.

I've always been very averse to a lot of sleep training methods but after I went back to work PT and realised he could go the whole day without breastfeeding, he was over 12 months and managing to get to sleep without me, I let my husband try some self settling during his night wakes. Worked amazingly, he'd set a timer for 15 mins as a max for himself, give our DS a cuddle, put him back in the crib and pat him, shush and say "it's sleepy time" while stood next to the crib. The longest he cried was 11 mins while being patted, shushed, never left, then he slept for hours! I didn't think he could even do that.

Once my DH established the routine, and had a go putting our son to bed himself which worked, I recently started trying it myself. Key is timing the wake window comfortably - for example yesterday DS went to sleep after crying for less than 30 seconds when first placed in the crib, laughing his head off while I rubbed his back, asleep within a few mins and then snoozed happily until about 4 am. Tonight he woke early from his nap at nursery and took longer to go to bed, overtired. Also consistent routine. I'm still bringing him into bed with me for the last couple of hours at night but don't think it's fair to fix that until I've got some time off work as it will cost him sleep and we get up early on work days.

Teething? Leap? Or, in my case, just babies who wanted to feed all through the night.

Both of mine would wake up hourly for a quick feed from bed time (7-8pm) until midnight, then every 2-3 hours until morning (7am).

Walking zombie over here, but I find it very hard not to just feed to sleep when knackered and I'm not interested in sleep training. Both kids slept through from 2 years old without me changing anything. That was when they were ready.

Thanks @HattiesBag (sorry I missed your reply). We are now a month since I posted the thread and it’s still so hard - 7 wakes overnight, and she just wanted to feed at all of them. At 1:30am I moved us from her floor bed into the main bed (so she was lying in between me and DH). I thought that might soothe her but it had no effect.

I’m so behind at work because I’m operating on about 4.5 hours’ broken sleep a night, if that. But I just can’t do anything that involves her crying. She would get so bewildered and I couldn’t put her through it.

We did try pushing bedtime back but even if she goes down at 9pm there’s no change. The longest first stretch she’s done in the past month (and beyond) is three hours.

She isn’t a baby anymore.
You need to sleep train

@LoolooBless you, I've got so much sympathy.

It was more managable for me with number 2 as I knew the drill and I expected her to sleep through from age 2 like her brother. She actually didn't start sleeping through until more like 2 years 3 months though.

Went to sleep at 8:30 and we are now on the third wake up. I am a shell of a woman!

Some gentle sleep training will help!

As a pp said, offer water when she wakes up and she’ll realise over a couple of days that it’s not worth waking up for. It will also be easier if you can move her bed into a separate room, as she will get disturbed by your movements and can also smell/sense you if still breastfeeding in the day. Get DH to spend the first couple of nights with her to wean her off the night feeding first (he can offer her water and she will most likely refuse.)

Then it’s up to you whether you’d like to go in and comfort her (taking turns with DH to do this), or if you’re happy to let her try to self-settle (she might cry on and off for a while) when she awakens at night. Keep a baby monitor with you so you can check on her and keep a lamp on so she can see her surroundings.

I’ve done this with my DCs and the transformation when you’re all getting better quality and longer stretches of sleep is amazing!

You aren’t coping @LooIoo , you need to sleep. What’s currently happening with your DD is crazy and unnecessary. You definitely need to implement some sleep training. My three were all off the breast by 18 months and I think that helped with their sleep. You’ve done an amazing job but your DD is no longer a baby and it’s time for a different routine.