Can mners pull a miracle out of the hat and give me the "answer" to this pickle I'm in.

[MrsFogi]

DD2 is 9 mths old, DD1 is 2.5 yo. I am going back to work in a month's time and really need both girls to be sleeping reliably throughout the night as my job requires real concentration and I need to be able to work at home in the evenings (pls no lectures on whether I should be doing my job etc the fact is I need to, I am the main breadwinner and if I lose my job (a real possibility in the current climate) we will be in the poo). DD1 sleeps fine. DD2 does not - she bfs to sleep in the evening and wakes about every hour or 2 and demands to be fed. I've ended up with her in the bed to get some rest. I really want to stop bfing but she is resisting strongly. So......how do I sort this out within a month - I need dd2 sleeping, to stop bfing and to get dd1 and dd2 sharing the same room. Oh and I need to function during the day to look after the dds. Am I going to be forced to do cc or get a night nanny (not doubt this costs a fortune) to do it for me?

This is just what worked for me ... pick up/put down to break the feeding to sleep cycle, then offering diluted expressed milk rather than the boob at the night wakings. The former was hard work but worked really well to get dd to go to sleep on her own; the latter had her sleeping through the night after two nights! Can't suggest anything re. stopping bfing completely as I haven't done it yet - hopefully someone else will be along who can help with this. HTH

Thanks - how old was your lo when you did this. I've tried the pick up/put down a bit but dd seems to have more willpower than me (many hours more!) so I started to doubt if it would work at this age.

I had to do similar, DD waking up for feeds every hour just as I was about to go to work. Was going mental with exhaustion so went to see the HV who said 'stop feeding her at night then'.

It worked. Took one night of semi cc, going in, soothing her with longer and longer intervals inbetween and she has slept through ever since.

DD was 8 months.

thanks OB that gives me hope! What do you mean by soothing her? Did you pick her up or just talk to her? Also has anyone got any ideas on how to get dd to sleep in the first place w/o the evening feed - we have a bed time routine but the problem is that it ends with me spending an hour sitting on a bed bfing her.

Here is an article on the sleep consultant aloha used with great success.

I didn't pick her up or give any eye contact, shhhed and hummed and stroked her through the bars, if she got upset I then picked her up.

Get someone other than you to settle DD for the first few nights with pick up put down (if she knows milk is on offer ultimately she wont play along)....... I was still bfing my DS at 6 months (but no longer at nighttimes) though he woke at 4am every morning out of habit - DH did the shush pat thing for 3 nights, then I did it for 2 nights and it did the trick...

To stop the breast/sleep association, I took to breastfeeding DS then waking him up abit to read him a story, then putting him in his cot to settle down to sleep. I started off shush patting and then just moved to shushing and then just moved to leaving him in darkened room to put himself to sleep.

stopping bfing (he was exclusively bfed) was more difficult - I basically had to leave the flat for the whole weekend (sneaking back into express) while DH had DS and kept offering (but not forcing) the bottle when he was hungry (we knew he could take a bottle; he'd just refuse it when he knew I was around and breastmilk from the source was an option) - after missing 2 feeds, he took it and havent looked back since. On the monday, I gave him the bottle all day (wearing thick jumper) and the same on Tuesday and then on the Wednesday went back to first thing and last thing breastfeeds and bottles during the day with no problems.