hello

I have been reading bellybelly since I got pregnant and my boy is now 14 months old - I have finally registered and this is my first post

I'd really appreciate any ideas about whether or not to try to night wean. I'd also appreciate hearing from anyone who is a breastfeeding co-sleeper but who occasionally takes nights off.

Brief background - DS was a pretty good sleeper as a little bub but because a pretty awful one around 7 months. At his worst he would have 35 min sleeps during the day and wake every 20mins - 1 hour over night, all night. He is much better than this now, he is a good day sleeper and generally sleeps for 3-5 hours when he first goes down at night (with a resettle or two in the first hour or so). He tends to wake fairly frequently for the rest of the night, but will sometimes sleep for 2 or more hours in a block. He starts the night in his cot in his own room but then sleeps in our bed from whenever he wakes after we have gone to bed. He is always rocked, patted or bf to sleep.

I have been wanting a bit of a break from this so for the past 10 or so days I have been slipping out and sleeping in the other room after DS comes into bed with us. Initially I was feeding him back to sleep when he first came into the bed and then sneaking away but for the past 5 days I haven't done this - so he has not been bf overnight at all (unless 5am is still overnight ). He seems fine with this in terms of not being clingy or upset during the day. His sleep seems pretty much the same too.

My partner quite often sleeps in the other room when he wants a good sleep and my plan is that I might start doing this too - ie before work days etc. Which leads me (finally) to my question - I'm not sure whether I should try to completely night wean or whether I should just still bf overnight but then expect him to not bf on the nights when I sleep in the other room. I have been working 5 days per fn since he was 8 months old and he doesn't bf on those days - so perhaps he would understand that in the same way that he doesn't bf during the day when he is with Dad, he doesn't bf during the night when he is with Dad. But perhaps this would mean he was more upset on the nights when I sleep in the other room, because he is expecting to bf over night.

If I thought one way or the other would help him sleep better I would just go for that, but I'm not convinced it will make that much difference. I don't really mind bf overnight - sometimes it is great, but tbh there are starting to be more times when I am getting a bit annoyed by it (although if I don't feed him I will probably just be annoyed by trying to pat him). I feel worried that it will be quite upsetting for him to be in bed with me but not allowed to bf.

I'd be really interested to hear any ideas. So far all of my friends have pretty much stopped bf completely by around 12 months so most of the advice I am getting presupposes that night weaning is self evidently good.

wow this seems very long - all those months of reading but not joining seem to mean I have built up a very long first post!

thanks