to leave DS to cry?

[CreamOfTomatoSoup]

He is 6 months and likes boob before sleep. He won't have a bottle, even though he will happily take one in the day, so I know he is comfort sucking.

So how old do babies have to be to learn from CC? I don't really want to do it but can't see any other way around this conundrum. He doesn't have a dummy and I'd rather not introduce one now.

AIBU/Cruel?

I feed ds (1 yo) to sleep but when I'm not there DH has no trouble, he just rocks/ carries him around a bit and I usually find them both asleep in a pile. I think cc is cruel, I wouldn't leave anyone of any age to cry unless they'd specifically asked me to. Enjoy the cuddles. Soon they'll all be off to university and won't need us any more. Don't miss your chance!

I did do cc with my ds at 7mo. He was waking every 1.5h for a feed at that point, and having gone back to work I was a zombie, as was dh.
Ds would wake, feed for about 1 minute and go back to sleep. He was bottle fed and took about .5oz at a time. It was a nightmarish time. We did cc and he was sleeping through 10-5 within 3 days. He has been an excellent sleeper ever since.
With dd who was bf, I decided right from about 3 weeks not to make a habit of feedin her to sleep. If she fell asleep on the boob, fair enough, if she didn't, we put her down awake but sleepy, and she settled herself to sleep within minutes of grizzling. I was always by the moses basket at this stage, and would reach over and pat, shush, sing gently until she fell asleep. She slept well right from the start apart from feeding, she would wake around every 3h, feed well, have a nappy change then straight back to sleep with minimal fuss. By 6mo I could feed her, put her in her cot, put on the lullaby thingy and walk out and she would go to sleep on her own within a minute or two. She still sleeps excellently now.
Of the two of them, dd is actually the more clingy, but I put that down to difference in temperament and age rather than anything I did re sleeping as a tiny baby.
Comfort was always offered if needed, but I just chose that it wasn't going to be the boob!

I'm very anti CC, but I can understand why some chose to go down that path.
It is exhausting looking after little ones during the day and you feel the need to have that uninterrupted sleep to recuperate and carry on the next day. In societies where breastfeeding to sleep and no CC or CIO (and breastfeeding a toddler to sleep is the norm!) is the norm, there is often other people around like extended family to help during the day. It's not just the mother trying to do everything. All the grandparents, close relatives all help look after the child, so tending to the child at night and dealing with all the night wakings, BF to sleep is not a drag for the mother because she is not exhausted by tending to the child all on her own - like it is for a mother in the western world (generally). Often a mother would have a nap during the day while somebody else looked after the baby. I was raised like this and I remember my mum napping after lunch whilst I was looked after by my grandma or nanny. I didn't sleep through till about 3 and was in my parents bed till beyond primary school and I'm sure my mum didn't get a lot of sleep at night when I was a small baby.

In western societies where nuclear families are the norm, I completely understand the pressure of trying to get a baby to sleep through the night. But there are gentler ways of doing it without resorting to CC, but ofcourse they take longer to work generally.

I haven't had an uninterrupted nights sleep in 4 years (4yrs tomorrow, DS's 4th birthday tomorrow!!). It is exhausting yes, but we're OK. DH does his fair share of housework and dealing with night waking so it's not like it's all down to me.

I have a thread in the sleep section about no cry solutions but this has been helpful, thank you. I've been trying to get my head round the difference between DD crying as i carry her round and DD CC. Think some of the links have helped me understand a bit.

For the people who have or do feed to sleep how do you manage night waking? Do they just grow out of it? Surely you aren't all feeding to sleep more or less hourly (which i did last night)?

Think, how old is your DD?

23 weeks so she needs some nightfeeds but it's getting silly - 10pm, 12.20am, 1.45 am, 2.50am, 4.30 am, 6.30am......

DD went through a period at around about that time of waking up a lot and it passed. How long has it been going on?

If you would like some light at the end of the tunnel, the week after that, there were two nights she slept through. Then it all went to pot for a bit and now at 11 months she sleeps 730-7 and she was / is EBF.

Hmm, that is encouraging. It had been pretty regular with 2 nightfeeds, 1am and 4/5ish. We even thought we escaped the 16 week regression and then all to pot in the last few nights. Teething is some of it but am worried that if boob is her only way to settle we are doomed (doomed i tell you....)

My son went through lots of quick feeds, a few long feeds, then no feeds, then back to waking up every 2 hours for short feeds. Partly due to teething so I fed him for another few months but when it seemed to just be for the sake of it.

Kids adapt quickly. I think if you stop putting her to your boob every time, she may object for a few days but will soon settle down. The midnight tears are wearing (I literally had months of it, no chance of me getting a job and I was really making myself ill with worry lack of sleep etc.) but try to nip it in the bud like I should have. She may not want fed every time she wakes maybe a cuddle will do. That though never occurred to me until I was so into the routine it was hard to break

*stopped when it seemed to just be for the sake of it. that should say :P

"For the people who have or do feed to sleep how do you manage night waking? Do they just grow out of it? Surely you aren't all feeding to sleep more or less hourly (which i did last night)?"

I have fed DS to sleep more or less hourly for many months. But he did start doing longer phases of his own accord, even up to 6 hours!

However it wasn't linear. He'd improve, then go backwards, then improve again and it was pretty stressful never knowing what kind of night I'd have. He could wake every 45 minutes from bedtime until midnight but then sleep until 5am. Or sleep through until 3am and then wake every hour... Or just wake up every two hours throughout the whole night.

Eventually at 11 months I started gradual withdrawal (used Andrea Grace's book) and introduced a book between the bedtime BF and being put in his cot. Since then he has really improved (although not every night) and now generally only wakes twice a night and I only feed him to sleep now if it's 4 or 5am and I'm desperate to get a few more minutes sleep.