Help for bedtimes please?

[Aquila]

Hello,

Can any of your AP types (sorry, that isnt meant to sound rude as I sort of AP, but not very well) help me out with any suggestions - my 1 yo is a right royal PITA to get to settle at night, often not being in bed til well gone 8, and more recently he has been staying up till long after 9, sometimes even 10. Now, I am sure some of you will think that sounds ok, but as the other 2 are always in bed by 7 - whether asleep or not - and given my work commitments for the evenings (WAHMming) I *really* need to get him to fall into the same routines - partly to make it fairer for the other 2, and partly to make life easier for me - as we HE as well I find that the time I am not getting for *me* in the evenings is being sorely missed atm!

He is still Bf, although this is another thing I really would like to finish pretty soon - am not entirely keen on doing long term bf personally. He wont take a bottle, have tried all that - will if it has water in it, but milk - experesso or otherwise - not a chance! Not too sure quite how we are going to stop the bf thing, but need to work that one out soon.

Anyway, our evening routine atm has fallen into a not so wonderful time of us getting the other 2 in bed, then me sitting at the pc with F3 on my lap til he has had his fill of bf and fallen asleep. Because they share one bedroom (very small one at that) it has always been hard to do any kind of settling in his room, and if I try in our room we end up with him just winding himself up more than winding down! I know that if I keep on the way we are he will be even harder to get into a regular, sensible routine, but having got stuck in this rut I am not sure how to get out of it now!

I am not keen on cc - and the other 2 would not leave him alone if I even tried it (even if I kept them up til he had settled) so that isnt an option....

If what I am saying is making any sense at all, can you come up with any suggestions as to gentle ways to help F3 to settle in his bed, without needing me to feed him to sleep - he has a mattress on the floor now rather than a cot (Ferdy decided to use the cot as a trampoline, jumped in it from the top bunk and destroyed it - oops!). I feel like over the last year we have tried so many things that have not worked, or not lasted that I have run out of things to try - would have thought that the 3rd one should be easy to work out on this sort of thing, wouldnt you!

[Tess]

hiya.
hope you sort things out soon.
my ds was b'feeding until 14 months and i was really desperate to stop by then, he was the same. wouldn't take a bottle, no matter what was in it..
in the end i put plasters over my nipples and told him they were broken.! it took a couple of days and lots of money spent on finding the right teat for a bottle...although i wish id gone straight into a cup/beaker for milk.. but i think only a couple of days and he got the message...
now, i can't get him off the bottle...well not so much the bottle...ME feeding it to him still!! he wants mummy to hold the bottle whilst he plays with my hair!!
the bedtime we also had problems (self inflicted by us) we always let him sleep with us. then came a time it just wasn't practical..
we tried the 'pick up/put down' method. each time he cried, we picked him up and soothed him. then the minute he stopped crying, put him back down again. it could mean as many as 50+ pick ups/downs but again. after a few nights, he got the message,
but..you do have to be strong and not givee in, otherwise you'll send him mixed messages..(where we went wrong again lol)
he still comes into our bed now!..
thats what worked for me )in a way..:laugh:
i hope you find something to help you and your ds x

[Aquila]

Thank you - we have done a lot of the trying the PUPD thing, but at the time we tried, I was all for keeping up the momentum, but dh was less than supportive and I found trying to do it all on my own was nigh on impossible - I kywm about keeping it up and sticking with the different methods and attempts!

I have managed to get him in bed tonight - settled him by laying beside him and feeding him - he took some persuading that was what he had to do, but did give in to my massaging his back as he fed to try and stop him wriggling!

Dh has just walked in and asked if I am leaving him to cry.....argh....best go see if he needs me to assist! Just when it seemed like it might be going so well!

[storm]

:hysterica :hysterica i like the bit about putting the plasters on your nipples and saying they were broken, :laugh: :laugh:

[Tess]

:hysterica :hysterica i like the bit about putting the plasters on your nipples and saying they were broken, :laugh: :laugh:

i actually rang a breatfeeding support person and she gave me the idea...i was desperate....lol

[Aquila]

Storm beat me to it (seeing I got sidetracked earlier) - the plasters on nips sounds very bizarre, but if it works what the hell! I am getting very close to being that desperate, but I am not sure just how much comprehension my wee chappy has to really understand what it would mean!

I think I need to get the whole going to bed thing established now before I go trying to stop the bf seeing it is such a big part of the routine atm - once he is happier about going to sleep in his bed then I will be more ready to work on the stopping bf I think! Maybe if I keep up the massage, we can wean from bf to just the massage and then on to him self-settling....or at least that will be the theory!

After one wake up, and dh nearly wrecking it by bringing him-self downstairs when he did, F3 does now seem to have settled pretty well this evening, so fingers crossed we have a long night of sleep ahead of us!

I also had to lol at the coming into your bed bit - there are some mornings where we wake up to find that not only have we got Felix in with us - he often joins us when he wakes in the middle of the night as I just dont have the energy to sit up and feed him - but have been joined by F1 and F2 as well as having the cat somewhere in the heap too! We only have a regular double bed so you can imagine it wasnt exactly designed to cope with 5 in the bed plus feline!

[trogette]

Hmmm... You're asking here for AP-ish solutions, when really the AP way would be to avoid disrupting the attachment between the two of you. Weaning from the breast and sleep-training don't *really* come under the umbrella! There are gentle ways of doing both, though...

What is his daytime pattern like? Does he get up at the same time every day? I know how hard that can be when home-edding :| and how tempting it can be when the previous evening has been awkward to leave them to sleep while you get some peace! I came to the conclusion recently that if I was going to get enough sleep *and* post-bedtime me-time that if dd4 naps I have to nap with her. So now if she falls asleep in the day I do my best to wake her up.

you could try the bedtime mooch method but it really depends on the child being happy to stay put while you wander in and out of the room, it generally takes a week to establish the idea that you're there, you're not going away for good and it's safe for them to fall asleep quickly, and in the meantime it can take a *really* long time each night especially if the child isn't ready for it (which tbh it sounds like he isn't, thouhg I totally understand your need to ring the changes.) If your other two would sleep through it it might be OK though?

re the breastfeeding, have you read How Weaning Happens and/or Mothering your Nursing Toddler? Would setting limits on where/when you feed be a starting point? What are the alternatives, would you end up still *having* to be there but without having bf as a tool in your parenting toolbox? Night-weaning works for some people, http://www.drjaygordon.com/development/ap/sleep.asp I'm not sure how much of your 'stuff' is about being 'touched out.'

[jimblies]

Try putting them down with a music or story book tape. I would use the same one night after night - fir the first week I would go through both sides before they slept. After that they would go after the first song!!

[Seren]

I've been told that the how weaning happens book is good and very helpful.

Other than that I'm useless here and can only say I hope you find a solution soon

[Aquila]

Thank you for your replies. Since sunday evening - ok, only 2 nights thus far we have started on a whole new thing (well new this time round lol) - of us all going up to do the bedtime routine - which we did anyway, but instead of me then disappearing to try and get Felix settled away from the other 2, after their story(s!) I have been laying down beside Felix and just feeding him to sleep that way - the first night I kept having to put him back in position as he kept trying to crawl off, and kept telling him it is bedtime, so sleep time or words to that effect, and he did go to sleep fairly well, and had one wake up as he had wind. Once that was sorted, and we got him down again in the same way he slept some way through the night - cant recall what time it was when he joined us! Last night he took absolutely ages to get to sleep, but did eventually with a lot less crawling off than the night before- Freya was snoring long before he was, and Ferdy was nearly asleep. And, last night, once asleep he stayed in his bed til A's alarm went off at 6 this morning!
Part of the not wanting to bf too much longer is purely selfish - I want my body back, I would love once in a while for someone else to be able to put Felix to bed, rather than just me spending sometimes hours doing it, and he tends to nibble when he feeds, which with teeth hurts! He doesnt exactly bite, but the action of feeding really is quite uncomfortable.
Whether my aim is really AP or not, I guess I am really after a solution that will help me remain sane, but in a nice way, rather than being tough about it all.

As to our daytime routine we are always up at the crack of dawn - A's alarm goes off at 6, and we are normally up and about before he leaves at 7 (and that normally means all of us, unless we have had a manic day the day before in which case sometimes the older 2 will sleep in a bit longer), I normally get Felix to have a kip in the sling on my back mid to late morning - have never managed with any of the F's to get them to go in their bed/cot for a daytime nap - was always either the pushchair, or a sling. This gives me a chance to do practical stuff like cooking with the big F's - unless we are going out in which case the sleep is in the car, or on my tummy while we are on the bus.
I dont often feed when out and about now, can get away with offering water in a bottle, and biscuits or the like. If home then I do sometimes give a feed (as I am now) around this time of day, which gets him to have a short nap on my lap - then he will be up til we start the bedtime routine at around 7pm.
Dont think the mooch method would work, certainly not yet - he would just crawl after me! Strangely enough he is getting loads more independent, and will go upstairs with the other 2 and they will all play together really well - I never hear a peep out of him until I show my face at which point he will whinge!
If evenings continue as the last couple of nights have then that at least is a good start, its going slowly in the right direction anyway!
Must go, got mrs EOTAS arriving shortly! Heaven only knows what she will think of this place!

[trogette]

IME it's possible to continue bf and go out/have someone else settle the child once in a while, if you're there they're likely to want to feed but if you're not they find other ways. (And I've bf 2 to 4yo and 1 to nearly 2yo and still going ;) The funniest is when dd4 falls asleep in her tea or on the sofa watching something on the telly, or the other morning dh was in bed poorly and she went back up and conked out with him)

Do you ever get your body back when you're the mum of young children???

[miffys_mummy]

hi Aquila (and Trogette) ....I don't know if homeopathy is your bag at all but a couple of remedies spring to mind which would be good for you and ds to take there is calc carb which is very much about life stages and "milestones" also lac humanum (potentised breast milk) which is incredibly helpful in terms of dealing with the energetics around breastfeeding , the latter can help you to get clear about your own feelings re continuing to feed. I have taken it in the past at a time when I felt I wanted to stop feeding and it helped me to get clear about nurturing myself in other ways. In other cases it has proved helpful in the weaning process and supoorting it happening more naturally and gradually HTH Fiona xxx