breastfeeding, notsleeping through the night possible weaning..

*unsure where to post, please move if it needs to*

**please, no 'breast is best' bashing, i am fully aware of how good breast milk is for my babe, and i am feeling badenough about this whole thing as it is, so please be kind to me..**

So, my son is 9 and a half months, still breast fed, but im thinking we may need to end our journey soon (unless i can fix the problems another way..
he is boobing ALL the time, through out the day, he is foever tryong to rip my boobs out and have a feed, he doesnt really do solids well for me (and when he does he prefers to do it himself - not from a spoom or anything- so i guess thats good) but for my MIL (i work 3 days a week hes usually there for 8-10 hours) he eats really well for her, (hes on formula there) and he sleeps amazing there too.. she gets him down for like 2 hours.. im lucky to get 30 mins , if that.. (unless ilay there and he will sleep for ages) but i have a 4.5 year old and a houseto attend to i dont hav time to lie around for hours with him anymore..
then theres night time...
so i put him down in his bed, and he will sleep anywhere from like 30 minsto a couple of hours, depending on if i have done all i need to do (washing up, bathed and organised dd ect ect) ill feed him back to sleep or i will just get into DDs bed with himand then i stay there all night (dd sleeps in with DH .. in our big comfy bed.. did i mention how comfy it is? lol) and ds feeds all night, on and off my boobs, rolling over me climby and pinching and throwing himsel around feeding from me all night, i just sleep with no shirt on and get woken constantly to him doing that , theres no tears (from either of us) that way but the last 1-2 weeks hes starting pinching , like really hard, either my opposite boob or the nipple and it really hurts, and im not getting enough sleep to continue doing it like this.. its not working anymore..

im considering weaning him, i think hes so clingy (oh and i can hardly leave him i am generally constantly holding him) hes such a booby baby, but i think im past it, andiknow its no about me, but its starting to affect my mental state, i am starting to get really resentful towards him (oh god. i am a terrible mother)its supposed to get easier as he gets older, not harder.

help me. someone, point me in a direction that can get this fixed.
well thatsme being summoned by the 2 kids.. tia ladies x

Hey stevie,
Huge hugs babe i totally get where you are coming from as my dd2 is exactly the same.

I have expressed my frustration many times.

I call her velcro baby and lo and behold she is only demanding to be on the boob constantly while i am around.

I work full time and apparently when my mum looks after her is she really good.

As soon as she sees me though demands to be on the boob.

I also had the same prob with her and solids to the point where she was exclusively bfed until 14 months.

She did not want to have any solids.

The lovely ladies here often remind me that food is fun until one.

And even after one she still didnt eat solids.

Luckily she started enjoying it after that on her own.

With the night sleeping and constant feed. Dd2 cosleeps with me and yep constantly on the boob and some nights i cannot even go to the toilet because when i try to detach her she cries.

The ladies here have mentioned dr jay gordan (i think that was his name) but im so tired that i just give in as i start work really early and need my sleep.

Sorry not much advice from me but just letting you know you are definitely not alone!!! Im waiting for that day she self weans lol ... 21 months and still no sign of it!

my god you're a machine M2SC.. i cant do it anymore.. i will have a look for Dr Jay Gordon..
good on you btw, much better than me, youre doing a great job.. the thought of doing this for another 12 months +.. i wont even say lol

Trust me the many times i have tried to quit!

Even tried drastic measures like putting lemon juice on my nipples!!!!!!!

Can I just say well done you?? 9 months is great :)
So hard. I don't have any advice except try and put the mummy guilt away you have done a great job x

Thanks Joeve.. the guilt im feeling def over rides the accomplishment i feel about making it this far, (with soo much stuglgle bfing dd my goal was 6months)
i feel so torn, and grumpy and tired and just plainover everything at the moment.. i think my biggest fear is that ill wean him and it will be an awful time and then we'll come out ofit not actually fixing anything but worse off because his only way to "comfort" is gone...

I don't have any advice, as I am only just about to start my BF journey,... .except to say that logically he must have other ways for comfort, because he doesn't use this on the days he isn't with you. So it's like it's become a habit with you. It's behavioural, or a 'want' rather than a 'need'. You really have done an amazing job, and you reached your goal!! That's awesome! Like any behaviour. If you put come boundaries around it, the behaviour will get worse to start.... But.... If you are consistent and stick at it, after a few days or up to a week or two, things will settle down. You just have to be as consistent and firm, but calm about it. He will learn. If it's impacting on your wellbeing and your relationship (which it sounds like it is) then it's not good for either of you, and maybe making the behaviour worse.

Be kind to yourself. And know that you HAVE achieved what you wanted - plus more! Celebrate and be proud of that. :hug:

My DD2 is 10 months old and I can relate .
She is a booby baby , attached to me most of the day , we do sleep as she is attached to my boobs most of the night .
I baby wear her during the day as she sleeps the best this way .

It can get very very hard and many times of just wanted her to leave me alone for 5 mins . I have awful days , sometimes the only thing that gets me through is knowing that this won't last forever and that right now . At this time . At this moment this is what my DD needs . I am her everything . Her comfort . Her life .. I know that it won't last forever as it didn't with my DD1 and she was a booby attached baby as well haha :)

He proud of yourself , be strong and do what you feel is right for you and Bub

Breastfeeding is a relationship, and its ok to change things when its no longer working for you. At a similar age, i used a technique from the book "the cry sleep solution" to stop the all night sucking. Wearing a tight top at night can help, as it then requires you to give permission (they are your boobs!) for a feed, rather than baby just helping himself. You don't have to let your little one hurt you. It is good to teach kids that they have control over their own bodies, and that other people (like you!) also have control over who you let touch your body and how they can touch it.

thank you so much for your kid words..
some days are harder than others..
today was a hard day... iknow it wont last forever and most days i try to just live in the now and not worry about tomorrow but today i just got alittle down, i love sleeping with him (DD isstill in our bed albiet im not in there anymore.. but you get me aha)
i think another hugfe part is i think im ready to have my body back, its been a year and half (an i know alot of women go much much loonger) but i think i want my body to be mine again finally..
i think i will try (just to start with) wearing clothes that he cant just help himself to and see if i can get him to sleep like that.. most times, i watch him and it like he can smell itin his sleep, you seehim almost sniffing it out, and he s not hungry
because as soon as i let down he chokes and splutters and drowns in it becauseitsnot for food, but for comfort.

*hugs* stevie. My almost 7month old is the same minus the pinching as I swaddle him at sleep time.

Hotl I'm looking for the book you mentioned but had one called "the no cry sleep solution" pop up by Elizabeth Pantley, is that the one?

oops, yep Dot Face. It is The NO cry sleep solution. The "pantley pull-off" method is what i used to help DD be comfortable with sleeping without a nipple in her mouth.

Big *hug* I'll probably get smashed for this but I'll say it anyway. Stevie It's ok to wean if you want to. I think the most important thing about feeding (breast or formula) is to be informed and as you said, you are informed and educated. You know your milk is fantastic for him and that's why you have been sharing with him for this long and trying to stick it out even though it's so uncomfortable for you sometimes. The decision on when to stop is yours. The only person judging you is you. Quit being so harsh on yourself! Step outside yourself and imagine this post was one of your friends... Would you think she was a terrible mum?

It's a tough spot, I know.
Look, babies love the breast. They love their mums, and they know that getting some boob will cure just about anything. So naturally they ask. And if mum's not there, then they have to make other arrangements.
If this is not working for you, then by all means, make some changes. There are lots of things you can try, with partial or full weaning a part of that. You'll find your better place with time.
A few things I will point out, just in the interest of providing perspective.
As said, babies love their mummies and need a secure attachment to whoever their primary carer is (usually this is mum, not always). So it's entirely natural, normal and desireable for them to be clingy. They will especially do this is they have to spend time apart from their primary carer - if mum's working or whatever. If you're breastfeeding, this need will often manifest as crazy mad feeding. But if you're not, that need will not go away. It's completely independent of the breastfeeding, it's just that boobs are a great way to get through it from the child's perspective.
So, baby/toddler is away from mum. .They're ok. Maybe they are a bit upset at first, maybe not, then they're fine. They play, they eat, they sleep. But then mum comes back.... and OHMYIMISSEDYOU!!!! they go nuts for mum. It's a good sign, really, that they're well attached.

You have done great feeding for 9 months. Maybe it's time now for you to stop. That's for you to decide. You will probably find that it is hard to find another settling method in the short term, but over time you will find something else that works.

thanks girls,
im so torn, i know in the short term its actually goingto be harder, and then once we get a rythem, i cant ever go back.. im just tired and over having a little human attachment.
andi think thewhole weaning process isgoingto be just awfulfor everyone... he loves it so much and he wont understand.. he will survive, but will he hate me for it? or will his little personality change?
this parenting gig is hard sometimes..

The important thing is that you're still there and still retain your attachment to him, feeding or not. This is what he will remember - not the specifics of it, but that sense of security. This is the most important thing.

Stevie big :hug: babies adapt and he will be fine no matter what you decide to do. be kind to yourself. You know all the benefits of bfing but it's all about balance as well and it's very important that you are happy and healthy too.

Hotl how long did it take you before your dd was able to settle herself back to sleep without booby at night? And were you logging?

Also Stevie how has your son been? Have you been able to get any success with some other comfort methods?

She still fed to sleep overnight, but fed and then came off (or i took her off) and she kept sleeping. She night weaned at 15 months (i was pregnant). She still woke but usually had some water and then back to sleep.

Sometime between then and 19? months when she moved in to her big girl bed she began sleeping through the night (8 hours or so)

I tried a few times to log, but i wasn't very good at it.

DF, How are you doing?

I logged for three nights and he was waking every hour or 1&1/2 hours for a quick suckle then back to sleep. So I figured he must do it for comfort. He woke about 9-10 times all three nights! I was really surprised because before logging amd actually being awake for his feeds I thought he was waking maybe 4-5 times a night.
I immediately started trying the pantley pull off and after a week one night he woke I think about 5-6 times where his initial nap for the night was 3 hours. After that he got sick with a nasty cold that has only just started to settle and he's finally able to feed nicely again without choking on milk and snot, poor bub, so I had stopped trying to pull him off etc and I logged last night and it was back to 9 wakings.

I've read on a baby website with tips on night weaning that one woman had success when giving her bub lots of feeds during the day and having no sweets after sweets after 3pm (I.e. the mum not the bub) and cutting caffeine out of her diet completely while bfing. I guess I'm sort of looking for a quick fix as the constant logging and staying awake to "pull off" is draining. Not that I have anything to do during the day as I don't work or study but I'm just impatient :p.

Do you need to log? Because that alone is enough to make you crazy :)
You'll read lots of quick fix ideas on the internet. I think what happens is a mum does something different and then her baby sleeps and so she correlates these two events and tells all the other sleep deprived mummies :)
It's probably not a really good time to try changes if he's sick. Hopefully he's better soon and you can start again.
How old is your little one?

Mine were both over 18 months before they could physically go all night without feeding.

The author suggests strongly that you do, but I also do it to keep track of improvments so it's like a form of encouragement for me to keep trying.
My son's 8 months old. Now, I don't expect him to sleep through the night as in anything past 5-6 hours, but if I could even get 4 straight hours I'd be over the moon. So if his wakings decrease from 9-10 times a night to 3-4 times I'd be very pleased.

And yeah that's why I stopped the logging and pull off method after he became sick (hence the regression).

Yeah, I've read her book. Personally I'm not a fan of any rigid 'system' (and though she claims to be all about figuring things out for yourself, she really does still push her own particular method). Do stuff if it helps, stop if it doesn't. The downside to keeping track - aside from the extra work it presents - is that you may also be discouraged at those times when it isn't working so well. If you weren't logging, you probably wouldn't feel so bad, because you don't know how much you're up, yanno? That's how it was for me, anyway.
At that age nothing worked for my kids so I just pushed on and did whatever made things easier and waited for them to grow out of it.
Good luck! Hope you get your 4 hours (at least!).