When feeding to sleep no longer works...

[choceyes]

My DD is 10.5 months and sadly in the past few days, won't be fed to sleep any more at bedtime.

I love feeding to sleep (I know you're not supposed to). Makes life so much easier and I get to read a book while I feed too! In the last couple of days, I have tried to sling her to sleep ( i sling her a lot during the day), pat her back, Dh tried to sling her, and in the end I laid down in our bed with her stroking her, and the whole process took more than an hour!

I have a 2.7yr old DS too, who I wish I could still feed to sleep! instead, it is 40 mins of reading books, lullabies, sitting near his bed etc etc before he will go to sleep.

No point to this thread really , just to say I love feeding to sleep, and a bit sad that DD doesn't seem to want to anymore.

[emsyj]

Maybe she is ready to start going to sleep by herself? My DD stopped feeding to sleep at about that age too (now 13 months so is still very fresh in my mind!) She now doesn't even want to be held at bedtime, and whinges to be put in the cot!

I should be grateful really, but can't help wishing she needed me a bit more .

[choceyes]

I'm not sure what to do in terms of letting her go to sleep by herself. Even with DS I never did any sleep training or anything like that, but on the whole after the book reading, general messing about, he will got to sleep on his own after we say good night, although sometimes he does ask us to sit by his bed for awhile.

DD just seems so young to not feed to sleep...still a tiny baby!

[NumptyMum]

I feel your pain! 1yo DD fed to sleep this evening as she was exhausted and luckily our nearly 4yo DS also went straight to sleep as he was tired too. But so often now it does feel like an effort to get them both to sleep.

My Mum asked me why I didn't just leave DS to get to sleep on his own, and it made me wonder if we do too much with him - so we still have 3 stories (depending on how late bedtime is) and he has milk and biscuit, but then he goes to bed either with a few cuddles or just a kiss. OK he then doesn't go to sleep straight away, he sings or chats to himself; but so long as he's in bed and not waking his sister I'm fine with that.

With DD, we're trying to teach her to self-settle so if she's not fed to sleep we lie her on her side, pat her back and try to keep her lying down. If she's sleepy but not over-tired she'll fall asleep easily; DH will try and stop patting her before she's asleep so that she learns how to fall asleep without it. We're HOPING this will make the overnight sleeping better... sigh. Speaking of which, I'd better head to bed in advance of my first wake-up call .

[kiwilizzie]

Ahr bless. You sound such a giving mum so I have the utmost respect! I will watch this thread with interest as I am having similar but different problems and posted a thread too. I don't have any good advice as am at sea myself and far too sleep-deprived to be able to think well but hope you get lots of good advice!

[TheRealMBJ]

DS (18mo) rarely feeds to sleep anymore I used to love it too as it was just so easy, but the boob-sleep association was getting to me, especially in the middle of the night. Luckily, he and I seemed ready to move on to a new pattern at around the same time (although, he still does want a feed at around 4h30 in the morning and as I refuse to feed him then,we have to get up )

He still has his bed time feed and then he goes into his cot where he happily rolls around, chews on his rabbit, and fights sleep. Until he can no longer keep his eyes open and falls asleep after about 15 minutes. Before he was ready, I couldn't even put him down in his cot without him screaming blue-murder. Now, it is relatively painless.

[TruthSweet]

choceyes - DD3 stopped feeding to sleep at about 9m prior to that she lay next to me and nursed until she went to sleep then was put in her cot (next to the bed) then all of a sudden she nursed until she was full then rolled over!

Now she is 20m she nurses then gets a cuddle from Daddy and I put her in her cot and she goes to sleep by herself (we say goodnight then shut her door). Occasionally she will start to cry and then we immediately go in to give her a cuddle and a drink of her water to settle her and repeat as necessary with out leaving her to cry for longer than it takes to get into her room and pick her up.

We don't have a bedtime routine past putting pyjamas on and cleaning teeth before having a feed either - long gone are the days of the elaborate bedtime routines of DD1's infancy With 3 to get to bed often by myself I don't have the organisational skills to do songs & stories & rocking with 3 of them!