My baby will only fall asleep while feeding, what can I do?

[AlyshaH]

My 6 month old has been breastfed from the very beginning, at first I was worried that I wasn’t producing enough milk as she never seemed to be satisfied so I combination fed but as I eventually felt more confident that my baby was getting enough from me I kept to breastfeeding. My baby refused to take a bottle and would not take a dummy either so she has been exclusively breastfed from around 1 month old. I’ve always fed her to sleep because I knew she felt most comfortable that way, and also because I realised that she was using me for comfort too. Now she’s 6 months old and teething which means she’s been biting me recently, she’s trying to grab everything so this means she’s been trying to grab my nipples and succeeding, she pinched my nipples and has also scratched them so now I think it’s time to end my breastfeeding journey with her. Because she will only go to sleep while being breastfed I am at a loss at what I could do to stop this altogether considering it’s her comfort and it sends her off to sleep. I tap her bum at the same time as fed as this helps to get her to sleep also and there has been a few occasions where I have been able to lie her down and tap her bum to sleep but these have been far and few between. Any tips would be very grateful, I don’t know what I can do!

The first thing I think I would do is to give one of the BFing Helplines a call to ask for some support on stopping the biting. The BFC will also help you to come up with a plan to stop BFing in a way that will reduce your risk of Mastitis.

I think that she might just end the sleep association with feeding naturally. You're already using bum patting as a sleep association, are you using any others?

And I'd give her something else to hold so that she doesn't grab your nipples. DD liked my earlobes but you cold give her a soft toy or try some BFing Jewellery?

I try to make sure she stays in a routine, so around half five to six she has her dinner, she will have a bath then and I’ll take her upstairs into her bedroom to get her ready for bed. I make sure the room is dark and there’s no distractions around that can take her attention away from me. I’ll lie with her and feed her and tap her bum until she goes to sleep, this has been the same since she has been about two to three weeks old, luckily she fell into a routine very easily. I know around half five she’s ready for her dinner and then around half six she’s ready to go to bed. I spoke to the feeding team in my area and they advised sitting with her until she falls asleep but she completely refuses to do that and my heart can’t take having her cry. I’ve been trying to introduce a bottle to her but she will only take 1 ounce in around an hour, I’ve tried every different type of bottle possible and the only one seeming to work is the MAM Free Flow bottle so I’m trying to stay consistent in introducing that to her hoping she will take it and I can give her that instead of my breast.

Are you doing that routine for all naps? As well as bedtime?

If you're only doing it at bedtime, I would drop that feed last and not worry about it right now.

You can start to build up some other sleep associations, like music or lights and a familiar soft toy.

If she's having one floz in a bottle I'd count that as a feed. BF babies only take roughly 25 Floz in 24 hours so pick a feed, say the first one and keep offering the feed at the same time of day.

After 2 weeks choose another feed and do the same.

It will take her a while to adjust to needing to take a larger volume of milk.