To think it’s not the end of the world if he feeds to sleep

[KonaMum]

DS is 12 weeks old and a great nighttime sleeper (sleeps at least 6 hours in one go every night, wakes for one feed and will settle himself if he stirs at other times) but his naps are a bit all over the place and at times he gets really overtired and grumpy. He has improved in the last couple of weeks but it’s still a struggle some days and there is no pattern or reliability. He would never just be put into a cot and go to sleep!

Someone on a group I’m in mentioned the Tracy Hogg EASY routine. Now in theory this is just what I was looking for - a routine but still flexible enough that I’m not enforcing anything strict or unreasonable. However DS will only feed to sleep or fall asleep in the sling. If I tried to get him to nap in his cot when he was still awake (no matter how many sleep signals he was giving me) he would just wiggle about until he got bored or overtired and then cry. He definitely would not fall asleep and no amount of shh-ing or patting would change that! Coincidentally - everyone says to pat baby’s back, how do you do this if they are lying in the cot?!

My plan for the time being is a feed, sleep, wake routine as he falls to sleep on the boob approximately half the time anyway and is getting better at being transferred into his cot, and any time he stays awake or wakes up mid-cot transfer, I’ll just pop him in the sling as he’ll almost definitely fall asleep then and at least he’s making that sleep time connection.

I’m really aware though that people seem to think feeding to sleep is this awful habit that you need to discourage. Why? Am I missing something?

Feeding to sleep is fine. The alternative is sacrificing your sanity.

Please don’t worry. Whatever works for you is fine babies are individuals ignore what other people do.

I still feed my son to sleep if we're home for his day nap and at night. He's 3.2y.... if I'm not there for the night (not very often at all), he goes to sleep without me. We still cosleep most of the time so if DH or DM has him by themselves overnight, he just sleeps with them. Maybe lazy, but it works for us. I don't subscribe to any kind of controlled crying methods so that's where we are now. He'll wean and sleep by himself when he's ready.

I've been reading mumsnet since before my little boy was born and this thread is so refreshing. I've had post natal depresion, I think mainly because of lack of sleep and because of the expecations that my baby would sleep easily. He does sleep but needs some help. The obsession with independent sleep was killing me. I feel so much better now I've accepted that's how it goes. But there is a little voice still telling me I'm a useless mum because he won't go in his cot awake. I certainly wouldn't read any parenting books again.

ftmwhoisclueless firstly you aren't clueless! And certainly not useless. Babies have spent 9 months floating in a warm dark sac. An empty cot is the total opposite for them. So if they sleep in the cot at all, great. If they fall asleep in the cot from being wide awake totally independently then wow.

Yeah, the sleeping independently thing is entirely for your own benefit at this young age so you shouldn't have to feel guilty at all. There's one or two of those books that still make me feel anxious when I read them and my kids are 6 years old!

@Nonomore2 if I could do it all again I would probably feed to sleep until he was over the 4 month regression and then try gentle sleep training, i.e. drowsy but awake. In reality we were so exhausted and DS was, and still is, such a poor sleeper that after wasting four months on EASY, I just didn't have the energy to do anything other than FTS as other methods weren't working (solid routines, no cry method, even DH rocking him). DS would howl and howl if I wouldn't feed him. By six months he naturally adjusted to waking only once at night for a feed but then an illness disturbed his routine and the 60 mins wakes began (even though fully recovered). After three weeks of that we did CC. A friend had a very similar experience and also had to do CC.

Another issue was that we were tied to the house for naps, it was a struggle to get him to sleep anywhere else because he had to put down totally milk drunk,in the quiet and not be disturbed. After CC he will happily fall asleep in the buggy. I would have preferred not to do CC (obviously-like any mother), but in the end there was less crying with it than any other method that didn't involve an hourly feed.

Thanks. I feel a bit less clueless now on the whole but I wish I'd never messe with his sleep at all. If babies weren't supposed to fall asleep at the breast/not fall asleep on you etc then they wouldn't. And I think about what I need at night to fall asleep so a drink or why I would wake up early and that really helps.

I've also tried to think less of him as a bad sleeper and more of him as a whole package (which is gorgeous) and what he's doing is entirely normal.

I’m feeding my 13 month old to sleep now for his first nap! Much, much easier and less stressful than sleep training.
I’ve found so far that not trying to force him to do anything before he is ready is a far less stressful way to parent!

Oh and he has been rocked to sleep, slept in a sling when he was younger, had majority of naps on me or DH (DH still insists that he get him off to sleep at night so he can have him sleep on him for a while before putting him down!)

People always seems to ask ‘how does he sleep’ my response is ‘as well as can be expected for a 1 year old)
But nobody ever asks ‘how happy is he?’ (which is far more important) but my response would be ‘extremely happy and secure’

Sorry I haven’t RTFT but what I find works (as we cosleep) for naps and night time is to feed lying down and I can usually pull away gently once he is asleep.

Ftmwhoisclueless My DD spent a maximum of 2 hours in her cot, ever.

She screamed a bit, I layed next to her holding her hand, she screamed again.

I put her in my bed, she fell asleep. She slept there for 3 years, I had to go with anything that got us both some sleep.

I thought about this thread this morning when I was in church for a christening and DS started getting tired so I rocked him to sleep for five minutes and then he spent the next 50 minutes sleeping happily on me as the organ blared. What do you even do if your baby only sleeps by self settling in the cot and something like a christening falls during nap time? Do you just not go, or do you just try and stop an overtired baby from screaming? I've never had much success getting DS to nap in the cot but if I'm honest it's because I don't care enough - all the guides say things like 'for two weeks while you train them to sleep in the cot you must have every nap in the cot' - who wants to stop going out for two weeks at a time?

I was thinking the same as I've had some quite good outings with DD in her carrier where she sometimes sleeps and is otherwise happy look at things. I know what I would rather be doing with my day.

I fed both my boys to sleep and BF ds 2 for 2.5 years.

They are both now teens and are just fine and good at sleeping :)

Do what feels right for you and your baby. There is no wrong or right way.