WFH mom in need of advice on: childcare, sleep, BF weaning

[drasticmeasurements]

I have an one year old daughter, E. She has been home with me since day 1. She's been extremely attached to me since day 1. E didn't really tolerate her dad (my DH) until around 7 months. I've BF her all along and still do. We cosleep, no one else in the bed but us. She contact naps. All of this would be fine but I obviously need childcare desperately. None of this is easily compatible with daycare. I wanted a nanny but my husband f%%&ed up his finances and now we can't afford long-term nanny, even if part-time doesn't look good. I'm looking for daycare to be set up within the next couple months. I can dream. Hoping to have her more independent by then. Hoping to have a temp nanny for transition.

So the advice I need, it's all connected:

1= Weaning her off BF. I'd still like to pump even if she's not directly nursing. E absolutely loves to BF. Like it's her favorite activity. She doesn't take a bottle. She doesn't take a pacifier. Yes, she nurses to sleep. She nurses to sleep and nurses 1-2x a day when awake. I don't want to stop BF but if she goes to daycare, she won't be able to during the day. So, figured probably just wean all together. See below about my advice needed for sleep.

Next,

2= Getting her off of contact naps and maybe night cosleeping. I've tried to get her off of contact naps. E needs a faction of speed to be transitioned to anything. I've been trying for months. I have it where I don't have to rock her to sleep. And we lay down for naps, not her directly on me. BUT I cannot leave the bed. She wakes up after 30mins and won't go back to sleep. I've tried rocking her to sleep and laying her down alseep. The very act of moving her away from me wakes her, no matter where she is in her sleep cycle. I've tried the gentle sleep training. The not so gentle. E gets so upset that she has thrown up a time or two. For nighttime sleep, I lay down with her just after 7p. Then I'm in for the night. I can't leave or she wakes up in a panic.

Next,

3= Separation for daycare. The longest we spent apart in one period of time since birth is 3hrs. E is okay with my husband for short periods of time at home. She hasn't been around anyone else consistently. No close family or friends. I just know she is going to spend all day bawling her eyes out if I suddenly have to send her to daycare.

Please help me. My husband is not helpful. I've been trying to get advice on other platforms but somehow I'm ignored. My job has been flexible and understanding about my situation BUT my position will be more demanding in the coming months, so I need to get this all figured out soon.

Please know, I've been trying to set up childcare for months. My husband kept putting me off and wouldn't really be truthful on how much we could afford and such. He put himself in a lot of debt, that's why he was brushing me off. I'm not a huge fan of his rn.

 

[yazzy]

@drasticmeasurements What you are going through sounds really rough. It’s understandable that you are stressed. I don’t mean this in a dismissive way, but have you considered part of this may be PPA? Some babies are very clingy, but it’s normal for them to cry and get frustrated, especially at this age. This may be partially a you thing (it was for me with sleep training), and she’s more resilient than you are giving her credit for.

1. She’s old enough now she doesn’t need to BF around the clock. Breastfeeding at home and feeding solid dairy products or cows milk in the day is fine, she doesn’t have to bottle feed or drink breastmilk during the day if she doesn’t want to. Some 1 year olds just aren’t into it and that’s fine. You can offer water in a cup/sippy cup/straw cup for hydration with meals.
2. This sounds really rough and much harder than what I experienced. I couldn’t do the crying with Ferber but was losing my mind roomsharing and waking up every 3 hours at 9 months. Her pediatrician told us that her job was to look out for my daughter, and it was important at this age that she learn the confidence to put herself back to sleep. I thought it was a nice way of wording it was okay if she cried and I didn’t need to attend to her every cry. It took a couple nights of letting her cry for 10 minutes in her own room and then she slept much better. Again, she sounds like a better sleeper than yours so a more formal method may help. r/sleeptraining has reasonable people.
3. All babies will cry inconsolably the first day or few of daycare. It’s just something to brace yourself for, it doesn’t mean it’s an insurmountable obstacle. Most get over it, and develop positive relationships with their caretakers. Mine is a mama’s girl and when she gets in a mood will scream if she knows I’m home and my husband is watching her. If I leave the house, she’s fine. If you’ve never been separated from her, you probably haven’t had the opportunity to try this out. Mine was a lot younger when I left her with others, and it was hard, but after a 20 minutes of crying she passed out from exhaustion and then woke up happy as a clam. It’s going to be difficult at first, but both of you need to learn to be comfortable being apart for a while.

Mine was crap napper and I can count on two hand the number of times I’ve been able to get her to nap independently at 13 months. They got her to take a 2 hours nap independently in her crib on the first day. I was getting nervous at 9 months because she was hardly eating solids at home and completely refused purées. We asked at daycare how she was eating and apparently she was eating half a cup of food 3 times a day with gusto. Daycare workers are magic. Your daughter may be more willing to try new things with skilled caretakers when you aren’t around and she knows she can get you to meet all of her need exactly how she wants you too and she as she wants it.

 

[demonslayer410]

@yazzy They may also be aware of the other kids eating.

 

[luca]

@drasticmeasurements How much solid food does she eat?

Join an evidence based sleep training group to help with the sleeping.

For daycare, I’d recommend just getting her into one you like and going from there. It might be a tough transition for her but often times babies adapt really quickly in other people’s care. You might find that she does way better than expected and takes bottles/snacks easily.

 

[drasticmeasurements]

@luca E literally just turned the corner on solids. She used to cough and gag all the time with solids. This is much less of a problem now. And I'm transitioning her from contact naps and it's working!

She is still pretty clingy these days, seems like that has increased over the last couple months. Eh, I'll take it.

 

[ms92help]

@drasticmeasurements We googled how to transition bedsharing to crib and used a hodge podge advice from tons of articles. But it was not easy and your situation seems more challenging. My LO took bottles and pacifiers, my husband and I relied on each other a lot because it was a lot of nights where we slept on the floor next to our LOs crib until he was comfortable, and my LO doesn’t contact nap or need physical touch to stay asleep when we bedshared. I would maybe look into hiring a pediatric sleep consultant that will come to your place and help you. It maybe expensive but you’re going to need help. I’m sorry your situation seems really tough and your husband seems pretty useless. The fact that you said your baby tolerates your husband is so crazy to me. But our LO was also very very resistant to the traditional sleep training methods. I can tell you something’s we did: at first we had to keep the crib in our room because the first week or so we answered to every cry to make sure our LO knew we would come, then after a week we set up the nursery and played in the nursery and crib daily ( you want them comfortable and used to the space) we also set up a bedtime routine, we follow a lot of taking cara babies sleep/eat schedules to make sure our LO was having adequate daytime sleep and wakefulness. Once he was in the crib in his own room, we would rock to sleep and any wake ups during the night we resisted to pick him up but we stayed in the room and sang to him and held his hand sometimes. It took a very long time. Like 3.5 weeks but it gradually got better. We relied on each other a lot though. Hopefully someone on here will help with weaning. I did read one article on bedsharing to crib that explained when bedsharing you need to slowly give more and more space from you and your baby in the bed. That may help with the contact naps and leaving the bed and then You can transition to crib in your room. It’s a long process and I wish you the best of luck. You can do it!

 

[demonslayer410]

@drasticmeasurements One thing I would consider is how much is changing at a time. If she is going into daycare she won’t be able to nurse while she is there. At home if she asks I would nurse. Then slowly transition if that is something you want to do.

 

[affitapoux]

@drasticmeasurements I breastfed my son until 18 months even though he was in daycare. “Just” a night snack.

If she finds comfort in BF maybe considering weaning after she has started daycare and you all have a good groove? Otherwise it might be a lot of change all on top of each other.

I would look at your list and prioritise.

 

[drasticmeasurements]

@affitapoux Thank you! I decided contact naps needed to go asap. She's been doing great this week!

 

[rosesz]

@drasticmeasurements Start with dropping either the feed-to-sleep or feeding when she wakes up (in my experience letting go of the feed-to-sleep was easier because my son woke up before us at ungodly hours and if I popped him on the boob in the early hours of the AM it would buy us another hour or two of sleep). It may take a while to acclimate, but at one you can feed her a decent amount of solids before bed.

Once she has acclimated to dad putting her to sleep, try to drop the feeding when she wakes up too. I've been trying to wean for awhile but mostly let my son dictate it. He occasionally still tries to nurse a few times a week and he turned 2 last month if you aren't consistent with your efforts to wean, just know that they can drag it out for quite some time. He also started daycare at 6.5 months and that didn't make a huge difference for us in terms of breastfeeding.

It sounds like in general your husband might need to take on more of the bedtime routine. It might be uncomfortable and difficult for everyone at first but sleep training, especially around this age, should help if you are both consistent. I would also go ahead like you've planned with figuring out daycare, I can see how in the first six months or so working with a baby miiight be possible but it really isn't super feasible when they are mobile. Maybe a smaller in-home daycare environment could be a good fit for you and help you start to build a village.

 

[drasticmeasurements]

@rosesz Thank you! I'm grateful that my DH does help with bedtime. Just this week, I've been working on getting rid of contact naps. She's been doing great. Her dad has been able to nap her twice. I'm hoping that this will help him feel more connected.

Also, I dropped the nurse to sleep for naps for the most part. She just wants to nurse when she wakes, as usual.

 

[echo17]

@drasticmeasurements This was me almost exactly! My daughter is almost 2 now. Coslept from day 1 and still do. We started daycare at 14 months. She was still nursing around the clock and to sleep for both nights and naps. One of her daycare teachers rocked her to sleep at nap time for the first week and they really bonded over it. We loooove her teacher now!! She still nursed at home, but adjusted to milk with her meals at school, as well as being a great sleeper! Her teacher says she doesn't even have to pat her back... but at night... she still has to snuggle in bed with me! Whatever - I'll take it! Happy to have her snuggles and also know that she is adjusted to her school routine. As for weaning, she eventually just stopped wanting to nurse. It's like she just kinda forgot it was so important.

 

[drasticmeasurements]

@echo17 Thank you for your support! I'm hoping to find some childcare soon. This helps me and makes me feel so much better!

 

[katrina2017]

@drasticmeasurements Some people commented what I’d say already, so I just want to emphasize to you that none of what you listed is incompatible with daycare. You don’t have to stop breastfeeding, cosleeping, or nursing to sleep, because of daycare (unless you want to stop for other reasons!). And I know it’s hard to imagine at first, but ime my baby loved his daycare teachers and classmates and spent all day his first day playing, not crying. But I’m sorry your husband has been frustrating. I hope it all works out!

 

[drasticmeasurements]

@katrina2017 Thank you for your support. It's been challenging, but I'm making it work. I'm looking into daycares, however, I live in SLC. It's nutty here in all aspects of living. I think she'll like daycare, too, once she is comfortable.

 

[eon2]

@drasticmeasurements That’s all really tough. My LO was still nursing at least 6-8 times a day when started daycare and we’ve gradually been stopping. I stopped pumping when she turned one but even with going the long stretch away from me at daycare, she was happy to still nurse at home when she could.

I have no advice for the sleep. I can’t figure that one out and it seems harder to transition them to things when they’re older. We decided at about 16 months that she wouldn’t nurse overnight anymore and then at 17 months we’ve been tying to get her to fall asleep in her crib by patting her butt instead of rocking and nursing her. She’s been fighting it but it’s gradually getting better.

My daughter had a slightly rough transition to daycare but it really helped when she bonded with some of the workers. I think for that one you just have to try and see. She might love having other kids and new toys to play with.

 

[drasticmeasurements]

@eon2 Nothing until this past week worked for sleep. I finally decided to try to slow down her transition. Since we co-sleep, I started putting her down for her nap on the bed. I've been patting her back to help her fall asleep. Then I sit in the room until she wakes. The first two naps she didn't cycle well for sleep cycles but the day before yesterday, she slept her first full nap on the bed not contact napping at all. I'm so proud of her. Next week, I might introduce the crib again. No contact naps is huge!