To think that feeding your baby to sleep is okay?

[StinkySaurus]

I’m a FTM and have been feeding my 5 month old to sleep at night and during the day for naps. My LO will sleep if carried, in the pram or car as well, but they do not ‘self settle’ and need a lot of support in going to sleep. This situation is working for us at the moment... however I worry about what will happen when I go back to work, how will they nap? Will I have to be feeding LO to sleep forever?!?!

I am hoping that one day LO will just decided it’s not for her any more and just go to sleep by herself. So AIBU ( or naive) to think this? AIBU to ask about your experience with feeding to sleep?

In my experience babies who are breastfed to sleep cry a lot when they start nursery although most adapt in time.

I still feed my lo to sleep at 16 months and he sleeps through all night, my DH used to be able to rock him to sleep, but since it got warm he hasn't been able to, so I am sort of stuck at the moment.
Nursery can get him to sleep by just patting his bum tho ! And my PIL can get him to sleep in the pram ....
So everyone will have a different way to get him to sleep x

If it's working for you I would carry on. My DS1 woke up every 30min all night long demanding to be fed back to sleep again if he was fed to sleep from 3 and a half months old, so at that age he had to be gently sleep trained. DS2 is 4 months old, I feed him to sleep and he only wakes twice in 11 to 12 hours over night, I see him wake and move around and go back to sleep now and again on the monitor even though he doesn't self settle at the start of the night. I'm going to keep feeding to sleep for as long as it's working, and if it stops working or when I go back to work I'll do something else, including sleep training if needed, same goes for his daytime naps in baby carrier (strangely doesn't feed to sleep in daytime!) If it's working and suits you now then why make your life harder now - that seems more like making a rod for your back to me by trying to fix something that isn't broken!

Both of mine fed to sleep for over 2 years (DS2 still going!!). It's totally normal and do what works for you, for as long as it works!

Sat here now feeding my 18mo to sleep. He's been fine napping at nursery and with my DM/DS and has been going since 9mo. He now sometimes naps for me without being fed to sleep. Do whatever works while they're little!

I'm feeding my 11 month old to sleep and she nearly always sleeps through now. Maybe once a week she ends up in the bed with us. I also fed to sleep for naps until I went back to work v recently. I'll be honest, I think nursery have found naps a bit tricky but that's not because I've fed her to sleep, I feed her to sleep because naps were always hard work and it was the only way I could get a break. I'll carry on until she tells me otherwise :)

I've just fed my 3.5 year old to sleep. Takes about 5 minutes and I get a well deserved lie down!

He can go to sleep for other people just fine if I'm not there so I really don't have a problem with it.

PS it's also early days for nursery naps as she's only been going a few weeks. So I take any naps as a win!

Feeding to sleep is a) super useful and b) just lovely. I was sad when DS1 started still being awake after his bedtime feed at about 18 months.

DS2 is capable of putting himself to sleep but frankly feeding to sleep is nicer for both of us so that's often what we do. I don't get the horror over it. If it's becoming a problem when your baby's over you can find a way to stop, but why borrow trouble by avoiding something so helpful and lovely just in case it turns into a problem that hasn't happened yet?

I fed to sleep then DD stopped falling asleep while feeding and I’d rock her. I did eventually do some gentle no cry sleep training at 11 months as she was waking a lot at night but I’d do it all again the same way

I still feed my 13 mo to sleep. A couple of times recently she hasn’t quite dropped off so I have rocked her or stroked her hair til she dropped off. I’m not planning on stopping anytime soon - why would I stop doing something that works?
She will sleep in the car or in the pram too.
Unlike Mindchilder’s experience my LO settled in at the childminder ‘s very quickly, a few tears on the first 2 days but fine ever since. She sleeps in a pram when she naps there.

Fed DD to sleep until about 18 months- tried to stop about three months earlier and she screamed the place down ( and like you I thought- am I going to be doing this forever?!) then a few months later I tried again- just put her down and lay next to her and she just went to sleep, and that was that! She’s been a great sleeper ever since Video in link below is a sleep experts view ( I know you can always find an expert to support both sides, but this made a lot of sense to me!) www.google.com/amp/s/sarahockwell-smith.com/2016/02/22/vlog-is-feeding-your-baby-to-sleep-a-bad-habit/amp/

I did this with both of mine. DC1 NEVER napped without feeding to sleep or moving in a buggy or car etc. We all just put used the buggy ie car for naps until they stopped at around 20 months. Stopped breastfeeding at 15 months. We substituted feeding to sleep with reading to sleep so DH could do it too and at then around 20 months we got told very politely to go away! No problems with self settling since.

DC2 still feeds to sleep sometimes but has also been able to self settle since a bit before 2yrs.

I just think it is a nice comforting way to get them to sleep in the early years and that they do grow out of it. My two now seem to be good sleepers compared to a lot of kids their age. Bedtime is not a struggle.

My 3 year old has her 30 second milk before bed, then rolls over and goes to sleep. She only actually feeds to sleep if she's super tired.

Last baby so it'll actually be wierd when she stops.

All of mine feed to sleep until they didn't need/want to. Their sleep was pretty random.

All 3 also through the night now. Smallest just wakes up for bad dreams now and again I think.

I've talked her into milk only at bedtime so we just have a cuddle during the night. unless I'm so tired that I give in 🙄

I fed my first to sleep which I loved until the dreaded 4 month regression hit and she woke every 45 mins without fail day or night. The only way I could get her back to sleep was to feed her, unfortunately she had terrible reflux so I had to sit her upright for at least 20 mins or she'd vomit - meaning I was doing a 20 min feed/mummy dummy, 20 mins sitting up (while she slept peacefully) and then putting her down and me lying down just in time for her to wake. It was like that for about 2-3 weeks and I honestly have never felt so unwell, I remember crying in a shop because some kids started screaming and having to put my shopping down and run to the car! Eventually, gently we broke the feed to sleep habit and cracked self settling and she magically started sleeping through and has done pretty much ever since.
I refused to feed to sleep with my second, I now feed her 10 mins after waking (unless overnight) and used shhh pat to get her to sleep in her bed and gradually withdrew the patting. She's 4 months old and self settles like a boss (still wakes 3 times a night for feeding which I don't mind a jot and will keep doing that as long as she needs!)

Feeding to sleep is lovely if you can do keep it up, if it works for you do it. At 5 months you've maybe escaped the regression or have survived it so I say carry on, one day they'll stop and you'll maybe suddenly realise and not remember the last time your tiny baby needed you to get to sleep.

I did it with both of mine, they naturally stopped and started sleeping through in time. Both are really good at going down to sleep now at 5 & 2.5 - there’s always the element of blind luck but I think it has helped that bedtimes have always been relaxed and soothing times for them rather than me worrying what to do and about how they’d settle in the future.

I’ve just nursed my 4 year old to sleep. It’s a wonderful tool and of course it’s fine to do, for as long as you want to and as long as it works.

At nursery or for her dad she has always slept fine without me. Really not worth worrying about.

Don't do it, I'm 37 and still need to be fed to sleep.

I feed my 7 mo to sleep at bedtime. She sleeps through at the moment so I’m like if it isn’t broke don’t fix it. She’s always been a terrible napper during the day though and nothing apart from boob would get her to nap and even then it was 50/50 and a 10 min nap if I was unlucky. However at nursery they just lie her down and she goes to sleep!

6 month DD here still BF to sleep, we go off the breast and onto the bed, then once out for the count into the crib. We tried sleepy but awake, you could pretty much hear her eyes ping properly open as soon as she went in the crib! Once she's asleep she's fab at it, but getting there on her own is still not there yet. Throughout all this (ftm here too), I keep this mantra on repeat from Futurama of all places... you gotta do what you gotta do.

I made an effort to stop feeding to sleep at about 7 months. Now she has a bath, feed, story, song and then bed. At nearly 10 months she puts herself to sleep, sometimes within 2 minutes of being put down, and with no intervention required. I didn't do any "sleep training" to do this - just tried to put her down awake and encouraged her to settle herself. Some nights at the beginning it took over 30 minutes but I never let her cry for more than a few seconds. I'm glad i took this approach because now I notice it's getting harder and harder to feed her to sleep, so if she didn't have the skills to self settle it would be much more difficult to get her to sleep each night.

So YANBU to do what works for you, especially for a young baby, but in my experience it is worth trying to teach the baby - very gently, and perhaps not for a few months - how to settle without milk. If you ever fancy a night out you will be glad of it too, as that way your partner can put the baby to bed.

If it works for you, carry on. I fed to sleep all 3 of mine until about 9 months and then after that tried to only do it for the bedtime feed and patted for naps so they weren't reliant on it. Not sure if that's the best way but I wouldn't change anything if I had my time again.

Haven’t RTFT sorry.

Here’s my experience anyway-

I’ve always fed both my boys to sleep. DS1 is now 3.5 and self weaning, he may go a few days without breastfeeding at all and then decide he does want it at bedtime then not again for another day or two etc it won’t be long before he has stopped completely. On the days he doesn’t breastfeed he has no problems laying down and going to sleep. He’s been sleeping through the night 12-13 hours since about 11 months old but if he ever wakes for whatever reason (the recent heatwave for example) he never feeds in the night, he’ll just get a cuddle and kiss and goes to sleep himself. He hasn’t fed in the middle of the night since he was under 1.

My second son is only 1.5 but I’ve also always fed him to sleep for naps and bedtime. He also doesn’t wake in the night anymore so no feeds there. He’s just down to two nap feeds and a bedtime feed. I have no concerns about whether he’ll be able to “self-soothe”.

I’ve had so many people tell me they’ll never stop waking in the night, I was training them to need the breast to fall asleep, they would never be able to go down by themselves etc - it’s all BS.
There’s no one size fits all with babies. You do you

Oysterbabe

I expected this thread to be full of mums giving lectures on why you should never feed to sleep, these responses are actually lovely and a refreshing surprise