Do you 'make a rod for your own back' if you feed your baby to sleep?

[peggotty]

Ds is 11 weeks - still little i know - but he always gets bfed to sleep at night. At his regular bedtime he feeds for about 40 mins, although only about 10-15 minutes of this is actual feeding and the rest of the time is just sucking until he goes to sleep and de-latches himself. His daytime naps only happen with him in his swing or pram or the car i.e with movement! I was totally spoiled by my first baby, my dd, who is and was an extremely good sleeper and self-settler. i suppose what I am worried about is that my ds seems unable to settle himself. Is this something that may come with age or is it something I will have to teach him how to do? He's really not too bad a sleeper at night, feeds once usually, twice sometimes, is put down asleep and stays that way until next feed/morning..

[constancereader]

I did this for 14 months, then decided to gently change the way I did things by gradually withdrawing. It worked really well, with no distress to my ds. You sound like you are doing fine at the moment.

[ThingOne]

No rod. Just enjoy feeding your baby. I had one self settler and one not and I don't think there's anything you can do about it. Just go with the flow.

[pinkyminky]

Very similar to constance ds settled himself, number two, dd fed to sleep most of the time, gradually she was more awake before I put her down from 11 months onwards. Since she has been about 14 months she goes down in her cot for bedtime and afternoon nap wide awake with no probs. There was the odd night earlier on where she cried for a few minutes.
I think he will do it when he's ready.

PS dd used to be rubbish at day naps; since she was about 10 months she has two hours!
Stick with it, I'd say.

[halogen]

I don't believe in the rod, either. My daughter fed herself to sleep for naps and at night every single day of her life until she was about a year old. Then it suddenly stopped working. I have to say, I panicked. But I just put her down and she was fantastic at settling herself. They do it when they're ready. I don't think giving your baby the comfort he needs right now will do him or you any harm at all.

[cappy1]

My ds is 12 months and I have mostly bf him to sleep. He most often wakes during the night once or twice. The odd night here and there he sleeps through ( these are wonderful but rare). I would love to say that I am alright with this but I have to say I am very tired. I have tried the Pantley book about gentle no cry methods but this did not seem to work. Plus my dh insisted that we should leave him to self-sooth (controlled crying) which I did not approve of but was at my wits end with broken nights sleep for over a year. So we tried that it worked for a few weeks then he began waking again. I slipped back into bf him to sleep and during the night when he woke. Now I bf him before he is due to nap pr go to bed for the night and I sit with him until he goes to sleep. He seems to sleep better now - two nights in a row he has sleep through until the morning. I just hope that he will learn to go to sleep on his own. The biggest problem with this is my inability to leave him with anyone else to get him to sleep including my dh or own mother!

[PuhPeng]

I always fed dd to sleep. It was great! No walking around the house, rocking for hours. No stress. No crying. Just a lovely, happy, snuggly baby breastfeeding quietly while I read my book until she dropped off.

I also think that it has contributed to her being a heavy sleeper because she's always been used to being moved / put down etc while asleep. She's now nearly 2 and I can still move her from car seat to cot in her sleep. Have even put her in pjs and changed a nappy while she slept, but she was very tired and I can't put that down entirely to feeding her to sleep!

There was no struggle or 'rod for my own back' when it came to her putting herself to sleep - she just started losing interest in her bedtime feed and coming off the boob still awake; I'd put her down still awake and she'd drift off.

If it works for you and your baby, ignore what any books or well meaning advice givers say. Just enjoy it.

[peggotty]

Thanks for the replies - it sounds like i should just go with it for the time being then?

[ItsNotYouItsMe]

Peggotty I have worried about this, DS is 5 months and usually fed to sleep, if not then he is rocked by DP.

I love it actually, it's easy, it's peaceful, it's lovely to watch him slow down and then just fall off the boob and relax, so cute. He is growing up so fast I want to enjoy it while I can.

I have a copy of the No Cry Sleep Solution for when I want a change though and it does seem to have a gentle approach.

But ignore anyone saying rod for your back, I'm sure some people just hate the dependency babies have but why shouldn't they, they are so tiny

[pinkyminky]

Peggotty I would say so. As long as he gets in to some sort of bedtime routine as he grows, I'm sure he'll get the hang of it.

[bluenosesaint]

Two weeks ago i was in the same boat as you, feeding my 8 months old baby dd back to sleep 4/5/6/7 times a night. I didn't really worry about the 'rod for your own back' brigade - my rod my back I did wonder when i would get a decent night sleep though

Well, two weeks on my nearly 9 month old dd is sleeping through It has co-incided with her going into her own bedroom and i can only conclude that the 'smell' of me was waking her in the first place.

Our little ones are babies for such a short time and before you know it you'll be packing him off to school. Go with the flow and i'm sure it will work out. Obviously if it becomes a problem for you then you may need to try out a few techniques, but with a bit of luck he'll just resolve it himself

Good luck

[pinkyminky]

Just to be clear, Peggotty my last response was to your last message, not the op. You are not making a rod for your back, just giving ds what he wants/needs.

[lackaDAISYcal]

My DD was BF to sleep, last feed of the day and during the night as well. She grew out of it at around six months and is now generally awake when she is put down.

So, not making a rod for your own back, it's just what little babies do I'm afraid.

[PinkTulips]

bf both mine to sleep for first year of their lives, both of them go down just fine wide awake now... and ds is still bf at night!

[Jacanne]

No, I fed both of mine to sleep and they both sleep like angels now. It seems the most natural thing in the world to do. An HV told me, when dd1 was newborn, that I should nudge her a little as I put her down so that she woke up again as it wasn't a good idea to feed to sleep - even as inexperienced as I was I decided that it was a mad idea.

I can't tell you how many times I heard the "rod for your own back" comment.

[PrettyCandles]

IME yes. It's fine if you are fine with it. At first I was perfectly happy to co-sleep with ds2 and feed him whenever he wanted, but it got to the point where he wanted to sleep with my boob in his mouth all the time, and wouldn't sleep anywhere else - not even in the buggy. I couldn't cope.

[pinkyminky]

Ah I don't co-sleep at all with my babies. When they fall asleep after a feed I put them down in their own bed. Also if you're having to bfeed them to sleep 7 times a night I would consider that not working, unless it was a growth spurt or something unusual.

[MrsTittleMouse]

But if your baby falls asleep when feeding, what do you do, wake them up? I never understood the reasoning behind that parenting "law".
If your DS is sleeping well at night at 11 weeks, then I really wouldn't worry, you're doing really well. You can trust me that he is NOT a bad sleeper at all (just don't ask me how I know ).

[pinkyminky]

LOrd knows. I would never dare wake a sleeping baby for anything! I just used to ease her off my breast if she didn't let go herself and then pop her down in her cot. It probably helped that she would just suck her thumb anyway.

[PrettyCandles]

Yup. If ds falls asleep while I'm feeding him I joggle him to wake him a bit without taking him off the boob. If he keeps nodding off then I end the feed and go into the book-lights-cuddle-cot routine.

[Reesie]

Nature has made babies go all sleepy when their breastfeeding for a reason I suppose - to get them to sleep!!! Howvever - I too got in the 'I must be able to put her down awake' as my baby was a terrible sleeper. I though if she could drop of to sleep by herself - she wouldn't wake soooo many times in the night.

Unfortunately I had to listen to her cry herself to sleep and still wake up loads. In the end I though that this was all wrong and did everything complely differently to what most 'sleep experts' advice and went with my own instinct and whatever would make my baby sleep the quickest and easiest way. I often BF to sleep at each sleep.

My dd is now 15 months and sleeps all night with 2 hourly or 1 1/2 hourly naps!!!! She was a baby who never had more that 2x 20 min naps per day and used to wake 1 - 1 1/2 hourly per night for months.

I should write my own bestselling how to get your baby to sleep

Breastfeed to sleep.
Don't worry about what the time is and that 'baby should be sleeping' by now.
Jump into bed in the day wth them - they seem to nap much longer then and you have a bit of extra kip too!
Do anything you want to get your baby to sleep the quickest and easiest way possible - baby hasn't got the mature cognitive thought processes that old grannies think they have (he knows what he's doing - if he thinks he can have his way he'll always cry in the night for you bla bla bla !!!!!)

[dewmeadow]

Reesie - I bf my baby to sleep and co-sleep and am happy with that, but one drawback is definitely having other children - you cant nap with baby - thats a luxury of first time mums!!

[Reesie]

I know! I remember having a lovely afternoon sleep and thinking to myself how lovely it was but I would have no chance of doing it if I had a toddler racing around the place too!!!! That tip is definately for first time mums or mums with all their older children in school!

[Poledra]

Peggoty, I bfed both my dds to sleep when they were small, and they reacted in completely different ways! As dd1 stopped falling asleep while feeding, she would scream bloody murder if I put her into the cot awake, and had to be rocked to sleep. Even my mum couldn't get her to settle (and mum was convinced she'd be able to do it. 2 days of caring for dd1 while I was working and childminder was on holiday and mum caved in!). DD1 was about 2 years old before she was happy to be left alone to go to sleep and even now, at 4, she'd prefer me to stay with her till she's asleep. DD2 on the other hand has happily gone into her cot alone since she was about 1. In fact, she will have a little cuddle in the rocking chair after stories then say 'Cot' and make it obvious that's where she wants to be. Made dh a little sad, as he generally did the rocking to sleep once I stopped bfing.
So, the short of it is, do what makes you and your baby happy which is not always the same thing even within the same family.

[fromheretomaternity]

Just reading this thread makes me wonder - I've been encouraging my baby to wake up and play after feeds a la GF / Baby Whisperer, but he then has a tough time napping. Do others have a feed-sleep-play routine during the day, or feed-play-sleep?

[Caz10]

it changes every day fromheretomaternity! dd is almost 6mths and I tried very hard to do E.A.S.Y. with her - but as she got bigger she simply wasn't hungry when she woke up, so the feeds went closer to the sleep time etc
now we're just in a total guddle BUT her naps and night-time sleep haven't been changed by it at all (still decent naps, crap night-times).

Mostly we do wake-play-eat-play-eat-sleep!!

Now starting solids and wondering where the hell to fit them in!!