to want to bf DC to sleep at night?

[buckleuprosie]

First off, we're not busy 'sleep training' in the strict sense of the word. Second, dh helps out a lot. :)
DC is 7mths and not sleeping through. No problem, each to their own. She'll get there when she is ready right? We've had a few very good nights where she's only woken once or has woken and moaned a bit and then gone back to sleep after five or ten minutes.
But when she wakes up properly during the night and cries I find it easier just to pop her on the boob for a feed in bed (some feeds are short others longer depending on DC obvsly), let her fall back asleep, burp, and put back her back in the cot.
Dh however feels it is much better to pick DC up and walk her around a bit to try and get her to sleep again without the feed. He thinks it is better for DC to not get to reliant on waking up for feeds if eventually we want her to sleep through. Maybe that is a good point.
I'm not sure who is right but what I do know is it takes half an hour of crying when she's being walked back to sleep by dh vs 2 minutes of crying + average 15min feed + average 10min burb when I feed her back to sleep instead. And we can both doze during that time.
I get a bit irritated at night when dh says let's try walking her because for me it seems a no-brainer that we should feed, but obvsly if this is the better option maybe I should do this instead? It makes us both grumpier when we walk back to sleep vs when we feed back to sleep and I think DD also gets less sleep, but maybe IABU with a view of what is better long-term for us/DC?

I'd be leaving her for 5 mins when she initially wakes in the night to see if she'll fall back off to sleep herself. Babies will tend to wake and moan between sleep cycles, leave them 5 minutes, if it continues then you can soothe them. If they're between cycles then getting them out of bed will wake them even further.

FWIW I'm with your DH, if she can soothe herself then I'd encourage it. She'll get better and better at it over time.

So he doesn't want her to rely on being fed to sleep? Instead he thinks it's better for her to rely on being walked and rocked to sleep. If he wants to do this at 3am then I'd let him knock himself out. He'll soon get pissed off with it.

We are 2 weeks away from being 1 here and have only just stopped feeding in the night. imho he needed it up until fairly recently. I think 7 months is still young enough for a night feed.

I still feed my 10mo to sleep at night ( and for naps for that matter) Like you I find it less frustrating and just plain easier. DP thinks this isn't wise as he will 'never' learn to fall asleep on his own. I'm sure he will, just on his terms not mine. This works well for both me and DS so I wont be changing anything just yet.

I don't think there is a right or wrong but personally I'm with your DH on this. I was able to drop night feed very, very early by offering a cuddle then placing back in the cot or a rock of the crib. I only needed to do this for a couple of nights and then my 3DC completely stopped waking at night and had a lovely big feed in the morning.

I have fed all 3 dcs to sleep (just finished feeding youngest who is 14 weeks). It did no harm at all to the older 2, one of which slept through from 10 weeks and the other from 15 months. When they don't need the night feed anymore they will just stop, it is so individual to the child as to when that will be.

Nature has given you a brilliant tool to get your baby to sleep. It came free with the package. So why wouldn't you use it? I've never understood this at all.

Depends for how long you are prepared to keep getting up in the night to feed a breast-dependent baby.

I don't think falling asleep needs to be taught, any more than walking or talking or eating...these things happen in the course of normal development, we'd be a pretty shoddy species if they didn't. IMO all we parents need to do is support and facilitate and bf is great for that.

It does come down to what suits each family. I would of course never judge anybody for wanting or needing to use gentle sleep training techniques. On the same note I would like never to hear another word about rods for backs because it just plain isn't true. My DC were always either fed or cuddled to sleep, always. They were fed to sleep well into their second (DD) and fourth (DS) year of life. They were and are fine. I was and am fine. They are completely normal kids, able to fall asleep alone, in my bed, their own beds, at their grandmother's house without me, on holiday, you know, anywhere.

It's all OK! And I wish someone had told me this when DD was 4 months old and I was in a tizz about the whole thing