Breastfeeding to sleep at nearly 8 months - is this a very bad idea???

[lupinjess]

DD2 is almost 8months old and still mostly breastfeeds herself to sleep. She's still up for feeds at least once a night and sometimes twice. If I feed her the whole thing only takes 10mins then we are all back asleep. If I try to just soothe her she is still crying an hour later. Not so bad during the day so would happily keep up with nightfeeding if I thought she would give it up herself eventually but I'm not convinced that she will as she's a stubborn little thing.

You mention no one else being able to put her to sleep? DD STILL won't let anyone else put her to sleep, so dropping the bf may well make no difference as to that.

lupinjess,

I fed mine to sleep at night til 18 months old. Until about a year old I fed him back to sleep in the night and then he just stopped waking up. Very occasionally he would but was out of the habit then and could be patted back to sleep.

From about 10 months old I stopped feeding him before his daytime nap (mostly because he started with a childminder then and he was fine napping with her) and instead fed him when he woke up so I knew he could get himself to sleep.

To prepare him for dropping the night feed (and stopping breastfeeding altogether) I just fed him for less time before bed and then I or dh read to him while he was still asleep. From the start of the process dh was involved so that we could take it in turns, finally.

At first we read him to sleep, really long stories he didn't understand in a bit of a monotone and that seemed to get him to sleep. It was only once he was used to that, that we started sitting him on our laps reading him books he liked, then we'd lie him down and do a bit of a boring book to get him off to sleep. Now he gets 2 fun books and gets himself to sleep. Never wakes up unless ill.

It worked for us, more by luck than judgement, I'm sure. I hope that reassures you that there's no rush.

Sorry, meant that we read to him while he was 'still awake'.