I don't know what to do anymore. My son (10 months) is still nursing to sleep and I am at a loss on how to break this habit.

I've tried nursing him to where he has his eyes closed and is starting to fall asleep, then taking away my breast. Sometimes it works and he will move his head side to side looking for it and give up right away and sometimes it doesn't work. When it doesn't work, he will search frantically for it and when I keep it away he will sit up and start to cry.

In the situations where he wants to nurse longer to fall sleep, I usually end up letting him nurse until he has fallen asleep and then take my breast away. I know that I need to keep trying, but it makes the going down for bed routine or naps take much longer and I end up just caving.

But that's not the worst of it.

In the middle of the night when my son wakes up, he wants to nurse to go back to sleep then too. In the past, it was only 1-2 times at night, but now it seems to be 4-5 times. I try to let him work it out on his own, but it just makes us both more miserable.

When he wakes up and cries, I try to put him back down by patting his back and cuddling him or humming/shushing. He will search for my breast with his hands, moving his head side to side and get more frustrated the longer I keep it away. I've tried letting him cry a little and just sticking to keeping it away, but the longer we play keep away, the more worked up he gets and then the harder it is to fall back asleep for both of us.

Not only is this whole situation upsetting in a "I'm failing as a mother, how could I do this to my child and have let it get this bad?" sort of way, but my nipples are getting uncomfortably sore from the constant, hard sucking at night which makes me even more determined to find a way to put a stop to the constant night time feedings.

My sons been in daycare more over the last month and other people seem to be able to get him down for short cat naps by bottle feeding or rocking him to sleep. I've gotten him to take naps with car rides and baby wearing, but 4-5 times in the middle of the night those options aren't the most practical.

I don't know if it maybe relates to some of his increased night nursing behavior, but due to his increased time in daycare we have also been nursing less during the day. He is bottle fed when he is at daycare and only nurses once or twice before bed at night and in the morning.

Now even when I have him all day, he doesn't seem all that interested in nursing. He will only nurse 3-4 times throughout the day; once in the morning, in the afternoon, later afternoon and then evening. Most, if not all, of these times are when he is tired and just trying to fall asleep too. If he isn't tired and we attempt to nurse because he showed interest in it, he becomes easily distracted and I end the nursing session since he is either exposing me in public by constantly unlatching or rolling around on my bed and risking falling off.

I am just uncertain what to do. I would definitely conclude that he only sees nursing now as a way to fall asleep, but I don't know how to break the association of nursing and sleep without losing my mind..