At what age do habits form?

[peakaboo]

I am a very frequent on-demand BFing, cosleeping mum to DD who is nearly 6 months; she needs the boob to fall asleep, wakes a lot in the night but is quick to feed back to sleep and is generally very happy. Depending on my mood, I find myself swinging from being mildly content with how things are going to terrified that I am 'ruining' my child and making the proverbial rod by giving her bad habits. So...at what age, roughly, do habits form? And is there a general time after which it is much harder to change them, or is this completely child/habit dependent?

She has already developed these habits now - but so what?

If what you're doing now fits the family requirements then it's no prob?

Worry when you want to change the behaviour! I would say that pre-speech is a good guide because you can pretend (cruel I know) that you don't know what they want when they cry - but sitting up yelling "I want mummy's milk" is a bit hard to ignore.

I did exactly as you're doing ( youngest now 8 so long time ago...) fed on demand all the time with all three. All in bed with us too.
It's tiring because you're getting less sleep; but having to get up and settle them is more tiring I think.
Having a happy, contented close baby is the most important thing.
My eldest now 13, we're a v. close family, she still comes into bed when ill, upset or can't sleep... maybe I should start a thread about that...

Do what you feel happy with. If dd sleeps on her own and you need more rest, do that.

When i did it , many of my friends did the same, it was before the strict nanny, controlled crying thing began in earnest- tho' one of our friends did that and we were amazed at how stressed they all were.

My friends kids, and ours , have grown into happy confident and unspoilt kids....not necessarily anything to do with feeding them in bed until they were 18 months or so; they then asked for their own bed. and often slept in the cot bang next to us too.

I think it's lovely. We read a book called the Continuum concept i think, about native peoples whos children are always with the adults and are very contented because of this; always feel safe.

gagarin- great weaning method! I stopped feeding at around 14- 18 months with the first two, and can't remember with my third. I just remember giving upall the good habits with no sugar, and baby rice mixed with breast milk... she went straight from breast milk to kitkats as far as I remember, because the eldest had just discovered them. And that is habit forming in a really bad way, because she is terrible for chocolate, while the eldest, who hardly had sugar until nursery, isn't particularly bothered!
I think you need to be more worried about that sort of habit peak- i certainly would have done that differently- what a crap mum I was

Of course, she has developed a habit now. Doesn't mean she'll keep this habit all her life. How many 45-year-olds do you think are still being breastfed at all? And yet a fair few of them did have the habit when they were little.

Bringing up a child is about constantly changing and adapting both her and your habits.

I breastfed dd to sleep until she was 11 months and then stopped without tears. Ds had a bottle to go to sleep with until he was 2. And then he stopped.

What you need to do is to gradually substitute another pleasant bedtime routine- I made a big thing out of the goodnight story.

Don't panic- she'll be fine.

I feed ds to sleep every night (7.5 months) thankfully he sleeps til 6am. but I didn't have a problem with feeding him all through the night to settle him. He stopped needing it in the night and your dd will too, eventually! I'd keep doing what you're doing if you are both happy. Don't worry about spoiling her, you are giving her what she need and making her feel secure and loved. I'll feed ds to sleep for however long he needs it. It will get easier as they get older and gain understanding of language. Then you can reason with them and substitute for a night time story and a cup of milk instead. Don't worry, loads of babies need to be fed to sleep for the first year at least.