Night feeds for 15 month old

[Rachel600]

Hi

Just wondering if anyone could help me with dropping the multiple night feeds dd3 has. She wakes at 11, 2, 4,5,6 looking for feeds. Although I try and make her wait until 12 I sometimes am I so shattered I just can't face the hour it takes to get her asleep again. She currently wakes a lot and endsup sleeping in our bed. I just don't know where to start with her. She is moving to one nap in the day time.

[*Ali*]

Sounds like she is using the breast as a prop. Can she put herself to sleep for naps and at BT or does she use the breast to fall asleep then?

What bfs does she have in the daytime?

Is this new or has she always had so many NFs?

[Rachel600]

Yes she is using it as a prop.

She hardly ever puts herself to sleep, there is always something going on and it has become a quick fix!

She has a 6:30 bf, then sometimes one bf in the day or ona two nap day, no bf.

She has had lots of nf's since about April, it all changed when she was 4 months and this has now been going on for months. I keep trying to extend times between feeds but sometimes it's every 2 hours and I'm so exhausted I just feed as I know it's a full on day all day from 6 to 8 and I need the energy. I manage fine on 5 hours of broken sleep but less than that is just not fun.

So far tonight
7:20 asleep, bf
8 pm awake, cuddled and soothed, back to cot
11pm feed (my other two dd's have bad coughs etc and tonight is not a night to do sleep training or try to extend times.

I am sure she wil want 3 more feeds tonight.

I really need help to change the habit.

[*Ali*]

Sounds like this is a sleep issue really. I would work on teaching her to self settle for BT and naps and then tackle the NFs that remain. Perhaps start a post on toddler sleep for help teaching independent sleep?

I did wean the nighttime BF from my ds2 at 15mo but he was an independent sleeper so had the skills to settle without the feed. I dont think it would be fair to expect a LO to stop the nfs without giving her the necessary skills to get to sleep another way first.