Just dropped 20mo's bedtime BF. Now taking FOREVER to settle!

[MegBusset]

DS is 20mo and I've just stopped BF him as I'm pg and was finding it agonising. He didn't seem that bothered about it.

However, since he hasn't had a bedtime BF (last one was Thursday night) he has been taking longer and longer to settle at night. He was never BF to sleep but would feed, then have teeth brushed, into cot, lights out and that was it.

Currently he has been singing in his cot for an hour. He keeps standing up then can't get himself back down (he;s in a Grobag) so I have to go in and lie him down. Five minutes later he's standing up again.

I'm guessing that he;s missing the wonderful sleep-inducing properties of breast milk. He won;t drink cows' milk from a cup (have tried warm, cold, with Nesquik in, etc!) so just has a bit of water at bedtime.

I'm not really expecting any magic solutions (short of stapling his legs to the mattress) but just wanted to get it all off my chest! And hope that this phase passes soon...

could you change his routine a bit soo that the missing milk is not so noticeable?

or shorten his daytime nap so that he is sleepier at night?

Thanks RR

He doesn't seem to miss the milk in itself, just that normally by the time he hits the cot the magic sleepy chemicals in BM have kicked in!

He sleeps for 90 mins in the afternoon, any less and he's overtired by bedtime.

Think I'm just going to have to wait this one out...

It's not the milk, it's the nice long cuddle to wind down at the end of the day. Bedtime stories, having a bedtime chat, rubbing his back, etc. all do the same thing.

Thanks -- the trouble is he is very lively at bedtime, I tried to give him a cuddle/story last night and he just wanted to clamber all over me and run around the bed!

I guess the last BF forced him to lie down and be quiet for ten minutes.

Dw took the same decision about 6 weeks ago for the same reasons.
We replaced the last bf with reading and singing - works well
and has allowed me to get involved in the settling routine which has been good fun.

Astonished that anyone would fall asleep to my singing!

If you put your lad in his grobag before he goes to bed
he should be sufficiently 'immobilised' to let you read/sing. Hopefully!

Well. Last night we had bedtime stories and cuddles in his Grobag with the lights down. He did seem very relaxed... until I put him in his cot!

Still, he was only awake for 45 mins as opposed to the 1 hr 15 it took the previous night. So that's progress I suppose!

That is progress actually!
I forgot to mention, ahem, that it took us
two weeks to make the transition..

One additional suggestion:
Can you put him in his cot for the final story?
Might serve as a signal 'story time nearly over, sleep time about to begin'.

Last night took 40 minutes. Tonight 30 minutes. So fingers crossed we are getting somewhere!

It's funny though, I'd almost forgotten what it was like to eat your dinner in five-minute bursts between visits to a crying baby...