u/Mean_Improvement_148

LO is 13 months, EBF until 6 months when we introduced a bottle of formula after BF before bed in the desperate hope she'd sleep through. (She did not lol). Switched it to cow's milk at 12 months, but she's not very interested in it.

We're currently BFing 3-4 times in 24 hours: morning wake up, before a nap, before bed, and a night feed if she wakes in the night (sometimes does, sometimes doesn't, sometimes wakes twice).

For bedtime she falls asleep independently. For nap times she falls asleep on the boob but I have started to try to transition her to do the same as bed time. She's currently at nursery twice a week and does fall asleep there (never sleeps very long cos there's too much fun to be had). In 6 weeks she'll be starting at a child-minder's instead, and will be doing three slightly longer days in a row, so naps should be longer/better/more consistent.

Last night we did bedtime just bottle, no BF and she fell asleep great and slept through.

My question is what feed/s do I drop first to move towards eventually weaning? Should we start with night feeds/bed time, or nap time, or morning?
I think I need to do it slowly as I experience low moods and PPD/PPA so really don't want to rush it and suffer the hormone crashes.

I guess I’m just here to vent/cry. Our LO turned 1 just over 2 weeks ago.
From about mid-May (so between 10 and 11 months) she started throwing out the 2 nap schedule - resisting and fighting the first which put pressure on the second, or doing the first but refusing the second entirely. She started falling asleep half an hour before nursery pick up (she does two half days a week) and it was chaos.

She’s always seemed low-sleep needs - never done long naps, 10-11 hours overnight max. Rarely sleeps through (apart from one week where she’d been on antibiotics and it was bliss). And she would always be ready for the next wake window ahead of when she ‘should’. She took her first steps at 10 months and was fully walking independently at 11. She’s signing, playing, confident, happy, thriving.

So I thought okay maybe she’s ready for one nap. She took to it seemingly well, would do 90-120 mins (would sometimes wake after 30 mins but I’d get her back to sleep) and be fine with the longer wake windows either side.

I shared with a friend that the transition had been full on and I’d been struggling with the inconsistency. They’d used a sleep trainer with their first and she shared a graphic showing what wake windows a child should be on at each month. (I don’t think my daughter has everrrr done anywhere close to the hours suggested on that graphic.) They said it sounded like my child was chronically overtired, and that phrase pierced whatever balloon of positivity I had that my baby was doing okay.

Since then (a week ago) I’ve gone into full spiral over it. I’m autistic and I cannot let go of things sometimes no matter how hard I try.
I turned to google ai as we can’t afford a gentle sleep specialist (or any specialist!) and tried following its advice for a 4.5hr first wake window and an earlier bedtime. The naps have been broken and short and the mornings have got earlier.

Two days ago it all seemed to be clicking. A 7am wake. A 2hr nap. A 7pm bedtime.
Yesterday she woke at 6. Her nap was abysmal (27mins, screaming, 11mins, give up. 15min bridge nap in afternoon). Bed time was okay.
Then she wakes at 5.15am today and I just feel broken. My marriage is taking the strain and I feel awful for my husband who keeps picking up where I can’t and he’s moving stuff around at work so he can do naps and it just doesn’t feel sustainable. I’m losing any ounce of myself that had been building back up.

Please tell me we’ll survive this and the naps will level out. I don’t know what to do.

Ages ago I remember seeing an ad for name label stickers that stay stuck in the wash/tumble dryer but then can be removed by peeling off? Does such a thing exist? LO is starting nursery and I’m hoping to label her clothes but be able to remove so I can sell or swap the clothes later on