am so confused- how do we stop feeding to sleep??

[desertbee]

So, DD is 16wks and over the last 3 nights has decided to not sleep well at all. A few recent 'variables'.. moved to next size in woombie, teething (we think) and the last 2 nights have seen growth spurt style feeding. She used to feed once in the night and has slept though a few times. Mentioned to HV at weigh-in today and she honed in on daytime sleeps .. DD falls asleep at the end of a feed. It seems this is bad. How do I stop this, without letting her cry it out? I've been told that letting her cry it out is a bad thing. Can this be put down to teething alone? If so what can we do about it?

At 16 weeks do not leave her to cry. Let her feed to sleep. Ignore HV.

Yes, ignore the HV, continue to feed to sleep.

This will not create a 'rod' or indeed any other implement with which you will later be beaten.

A breastfeed was the only thing that would ever really help DS with teething pain, to take that away would seem cruel to me.

Agree, 16 weeks is too young to expect her not to feed to sleep.

Babies fall asleep being fed because they are warm, comforted and full - soon enough she will be awake but drowsy at the end and will learn to let herself drift off to sleep, but until then don't worry about it. Every now and then see if she is ready, but don't get fixed on it.

Agree with all the rest - it is perfectly normal behaviour for a 16 week old (and sometimes for a 16 month old too - although not now he is two and I do so miss it)

Relax, it's a very useful tool. It makes your life easier and your baby happier. I still feed my 2yo to sleep in the evenings with no ill-effects. She sleeps through the night and bedtimes are a breeze.

If you want to break the cycle of feed = sleep for your baby, you don't necessarily have to let them cry it out. You can just wake them up at the end of a feed (maybe a gentle burp?) and then put them down in the cot / rock them to sleep / whatever your preferred method is.

But having said that, I'm pretty sure I was still feeding to sleep at 16 weeks - seemed like madness to wake up the baby and give myself more work when I was so tired myself. She just gradually seemed more alert at the end of the feed. So don't feel you need to do anything drastic.

If it is not a problem for you, ignore the HV. She doesn't have to put the baby to sleep....... When it becomes an issue, work it out then. I used to worry I would be feeding DS to sleep when he was doing his GCSEs (!) well all of a sudden he has learnt to settle himself (aged well over 1, though).

Pretty conclusive so far, thanks. Feel much better.
This spell of waking more and not wanting to stay in her basket though.. does it fit with our assumed teething do you think?

IIRC, they all go through an unsettled sleep phase around 4-5 months. DS had been sleeping through from 9 weeks then suddenly was up 1-3 times every night for a few weeks right around 4.5 months. I'm sure I posted about it and got a resounding 'yep, that's normal'.

Everyone insisted DS must be teething from 3 months onward due to whatever odd thing he was doing at the time, but his first only came through at 9 months!

Wow, an HV that actually makes comments! Mine is completely useless and never has anything to say! Re feeding to sleep I agree with the other posters, she is too young for you to worry about this. My DD slept fantastically from 3 to 4 months when she hit the 4 month sleep regression and things went downhill for a while. But she's been properly sleeping through now since 7mo (she's now 9.5mo) and I always fed to sleep and didn't let her cry it out. Stick with it, ignore HV.

Thanks everyone. As no-one is worried about feeding to sleep I'm assuming you'd have no concerns about DD sharing our bed when she really refuses to settle back into basket.
Building cot bed at the w/e.. hoping bigger bed might help!
And back to feeding to sleep... are you all talking about day and night?
DD will drop off in her pram or sling wrap or babybjorn .. but when at home it's almost always when feeding.

I went absolutely mental about this for ages. Convinced myself that the feeding-to-sleep was such a grave dereliction of my parental duties that we would have a teenager sharing our bed in due course.

We never did work out what to do about it, so he is still fed to sleep at night. Eventually, one day he just.. fell asleep when it was naptime. A few weeks later, he just.. slept through.

Catastrophe of teen-in-bed averted with zero work on our part.

You're doing fabulously. HVs drive me mental. They seem to jump in with parenting advice at the drop of a hat but refuse to commit to any actual health advice when asked.

(I think we may be able to save CB by cutting HVs [tongue-in-cheek emoticon] )

feeding to sleep is one of the few fail safe skills we have at our disposal-please don't fret. I used to drive myself mad about it as the "books" and "gurus" disapprove. Now I have more parenting confidence I fully advise you to use all the tricks nature has provided you with...as some day your baby will decide that feeding for two minutes is all that will be tolerated and you will miss these sleepy cuddles!

desertbee, I'm talking about feeding to sleep any time. When DS is home with me, I can't get him to nap any other way (unless I put him in car and drive him around), and he is 14 months! At nursery he fights sleep too, down to 1 nap a day, and sometimes only 30 minutes.

He does go down awake at night now, but after a feed. We read a story inbetween to break it up, though once in a while he still falls asleep feeding and I'm definitely not going to wake him up.

We didn't start the story routine until a few months ago, he fed to sleep most nights up till 10-11 months.

FranknCock, and you others.. thank you wishes you lived round the corner.. we moved to our area too late in pregnancy to get on NCT and make new parent mates.

hell, that sounds pathetic!

Oh.. didn't mean for bold- just popped it in *
Woops

I used to use it whenever, naps, bedtime. And I would often wake up for the next feed and find that DS was snuggled up next to me still from the last one :)

I always feed to sleep at bedtime - ds (11 wks) goes to bed in a bedside cot but comes into my bed to feed (to sleep) during the night.

I don't always feed to sleep for daytime naps though as he's often still awake at the end of a feed, but I give him a dummy instead.

If you feel you need to change it, try rocking instead.

But otherwise it's fine. I used to worry about it & try to change it but I wished I'd saved the effort and go with the flow.

I fed to sleep at night and for all naps till it stopped working for naps at around 8 months. :( Still works at night, though. :)

I got an Amby when dd was 5 months because feeding to sleep was the only that worked apart from being outside in the pushchair, sling etc. As soon as I stopped she woke up.

Took a couple of weeks to get used to it, but then napped well in it. Nighttimes, after four months she was waking every hour so didn't really bother about it and just co-slept.

When she outgrew the Amby (think now you can get a toddler attachment) I did resort to the pushchair backwards and forwards in the bedroom which I had resisted. She was 2plus before I could get her to nap without movement. All totally different with the childminder of course.

I wish I had the answer to this, as my DD still falls asleep on the boob for every snooze and every night......But then she's 22 months.

At the age your little one is, it is completely normal and healthy and I wouldn't try to change anything.