I know I need to stop feeding to sleep....but HOW???

[Moulesfrites]

Ds is 9.5 mo. He has never been a great sleeper and seems to be going through a particularly dodgy stage ATM. He wakes at least 3 times a night and we usually end up cosleeping for the second half of the night. I have always fed him to sleep at bedtime, which I know is why he can't self settle during the night.

He does self settle for naps incidentally, but only in his push chair, so not sure that that counts? Anyway, I know I need to stop feeding to sleep if his sleep is to improve but I just can't figure out how. At the minute, we bath him, put pjs on and put him in his grow bag, I feed him and then transfer him to cot asleep. I have tried, on the hv's advice, doing the pantley pull off and then putting him in the bag, but he hates having his arms manhandled so he just got upset and I ended up rocking him to sleep. He is tired at bedtime so if I were to feed him before his bath he would probably just fall asleep without a bath. Does anyone have any advice on how to approach this?

I feed him to sleep during the night also, but the hv says he should have dropped night feeds by now. The first couple of times during the night it works fine, but then generally the last time he wakes he will just suck forever and scream when I unlatch him, and not settle back in the cot, which is the point at which I cave in and we cosleep. I am getting a bit tired of basically sleeping with my nipple in his mouth, but even when co sleeping he sometimes screams when I unlatch him and takes a while to settle. At advice anyone?

He will outgrow the need to suck to sleep. But it's wearther your happy to carry on until then or if you want to change this?

I recomend you giving his last feed maybe before the rest of his bedtime routine and then getting someone else to setal him.

Oh and there is no reasion why he should have drop his night feeds by now it's perfectly normal for a 9month old to still need night feeds.

I agree with MigGril. Why do you feel the need to stop doing what you're doing? Is it just because the HV has (incorrectly) told you that you're doing something wrong?

If it really bothers you, you could try cuddling to sleep without feeding. There is also nothing wrong with cosleeping if you are happy with it - after all, it's what we as humans, are designed to do.

Why, do you need to stop. Feeding a child to sleep is one of the most beautiful parts of motherhood.
My EBF DD2 would very occasionally do it well into school age.
It's only a problem if the child takes a stupidly long time to drop off, wakes as soon as you put them to bed or gets too heavy to carry up stairs

I know, I don't really want to stop. It means bedtime is so easy, I read or mnet while I am feeding while dh cooks dinner. I am loathe to give it up but feel I have to if his sleep is to improve at all. It would cause untold amounts of problems if dh settled him, not least that I would have to cook and dinner would be rubbish!

Moulesfrites; everything you describe is going on here too. In my head it's not textbook, but in my heart I love it.

Moulesfrites, my 11 month old feeds to sleep too and cosleeps half the night. Every so often I'm convinced that she'll do it forever, but actually when I think about it she's made slow but good progress towards being able to self- settle - recently she has had her feed, been put down awake, held my hand and got up and lain down several times (while I pretend to be asleep next to cot...) and then finally GONE TO SLEEP by herself. When I've tried to be more ruthless she screams herself into nosebleeds! She will outgrow it, she's making progress and anyway I love feeding her in the evening (my DH also cooks dinner while I do it and it's my favourite time of day.) Good luck to you both, I say!

I feed dd2 to sleep and she is 3.2. I stopped feeding her during the night 18months ago but she will not settle without her booby so I take her to bed at 8pm have a story then she has a small feed, usually 5-10mins. If she wakes during the night she often climbs in with me and drifts off herself. the odd night she does try and sleep herself so I think she is getting ready to fall asleep but she finds it hard. If I am not in the house she will let DP put her to bed and cuddle her to sleep.
DD3 is 15m and she is also fed to sleep, it's part of the reason dd2 wants bedtime booby, but she is much more likely to cuddle to sleep then dd2 and she will actually refuse booby in the night and have a cuddle instead. She still feeds once a night usually so 9.5m is perfectly normal.
Th last 2 nights they have been porrly so I have co-slept with them both, DP has had dd2's bed. We like co-sleeping and as we are all in the same room it makes sense

So many 'should's in your post....

Do whatever works for you. Try different things and see which one is the least painful. Ignore HVs (tell them the baby is sleeping through if it makes you feel better, that should avoid too much stupid advice).

FWIW, I bf to sleep ds1 until he was almost 3yo, still doing it with 19mo ds2. However I stopped bfing both during the night at just over a year old, when I got fed up of night feeding - I just cuddled them to sleep instead.

I co-sleep half the night too.

Neither of my dc are very good sleepers (actually, ds1 is now, at 4yo, but wasn't as a baby), but I know it's for such a short time and it does get better, I'd rather they got as many cuddles as they need and knew mummy is always there for them than get a decent night's sleep.

Not that I'd mind one of those

I still feed to sleep and DS is 3 :) Tends to take 5-10 minutes now. Slightly longer ATM because of the fireworks, but as he said to me the other day "It's okay Mummy, when I have milk I can't hear them."

DP is perfectly able to settle him, as long as DS knows or thinks I'm totally out of action - e.g. sometimes if I'm really tired I'll go for a nap in the afternoon and miss bedtime. Or if I'm ill and stuck in bed. Or if I'm out.

Could you sidecar the cot to your bed to make night feeds a bit easier and help the transition later? I know this might feel like a backwards step, but I think DS was about 10 months when he started to roll away after feeding (with the help of the Pantley Pull Off - had tried it before unsuccessfully but at this age it just worked. Friend has recently found this with her 10mo as well.) and by a year would feed, roll over awake but drowsy, and fall asleep without touching me at all. I probably could have easily transitioned him to a single bed (prob single mattress on floor) in his own room at that point, but we moved and I decided to keep co-sleeping to reassure him through the changes.

They do grow out of the night wakings. And as they get older they get easier to settle if they wake in the night, too.

Watching with interest. mine has similar problem but we've decided to give in and let him grow out of it in his own time. Am feeding him to sleep upto around 4 times in the night. Don't listen to your HV. All baby's are not the same. Your LO needs you to do this for him at the moment. When he's finished with you, he'll let you know!

OP has not even mentioned her HV! Why is she getting the blame?!

Anyway, I had this with DD2 at around the same age,and it was really getting to me as some nights she would wake up when going into cot and then I'd be stuck there for hours. Also never got to put DD1 in bed. I tried the pantley thing too but maybe I didn't do it right, or didn't have the patience and tried to rush things too much.

What worked for me in the end was doing a breastfeed earlier and then a bottle at bedtime, she would generally go to bed awake after a bottle quite happily. I'm sure it's no coincidence though that within a month she had stopped breastfeeding all together (she was already fairly unenthusiastic anyway, never a milk monster).

I was feeding 13 mo DS to sleep until last Thursday night and then he went on a nursing strike :(

I used to do exactly the same - feed and MN while DH cooked dinner.

If it's not a problem for you, ignore the HV.

By the way, DS used to wake every 1-2 hours. Nowadays he wakes once or sleeps through, despite being fed or rocked to sleep every night still. So it doesn't follow necessarily that feeding to sleep means they can't settle in the night.

Hippo the OP mentions her HV twice

If you don't want to stop, then don't.
I nursed my DD to sleep until she was 3.5 (and only stopped then because I had a medical reason to do so; given the choice, we would have continued).
If you are happy and your DS is happy, then ignore the HV.

(Incidentally, my DD is 5 now. She goes to sleep by herself quite happily, despite lots of people telling me that she would never be able to if I carried on bf her to sleep. And she still remembers being breastfed to sleep. It's a really happy memory for both of us.)

Do what feels right for you and your baby.

I still feed my 3 yo DD1 to sleep. If you are worried that your HV says you are doing something wrong then don't. He is your baby, you know him best and you are the one that deals with night-wakings, not your HV. You could ask her for evidence to back up what she is saying, smile and ignore or just stop going to clinic.

If you are happy feeding him to sleep and it's working well for you both then why change? :)

Most adults do not 'sleep through' btw, it's just that we can get back to sleep on our own. DD1 is starting to go back to sleep on her own after waking at night, I don't have to feed her every time. It varies between babies, some learn to get back to sleep on their own earlier than others.

If you're happy with feeding your DS to sleep then carry on, it won't do any harm. I was feeding my DS to sleep until recently when suddenly it wasn't working any more. He would feed then start rolling onto his belly and chatting rather than falling asleep. So, I put him in his cot as an experiment, he cried on and off for about 15 minutes (with me going in to comfort him every 4 mins or so) and then conked out. Since then, I feed him, he pulls off when he's full and then I put him in the cot where he whinges briefly and falls asleep. It worked because he was totally ready for it. Incidentally he suddenly started sleeping through from 7-5 having previously woken at least once, sometimes three times a night. He now sometimes wakes during the night and has a very brief whinge but goes back to sleep. I know now that he just needed the chance to find out how to settle on his own. However, if he had really cried that first night, rather than just whinging, or hadn't gone to sleep after 20 minutes I would have abandoned it and found another way to get him to sleep. I can't rock him as I have a very bad back and he is a very heavy baby so I probably would have just laid with him in the bed or something.

Go with your gut on these things. Follow what you and your DS feel ready for, not what a random HV thinks is "best".

Forgot to say, my DS is 10 and a half months and has been self settling since just before he turned 10 months.

Oh yeah :)

I think I was projecting massively there, as I was so fed up by this stage. Op if you don't want to stop then don't! just do what works for you.

Thank you for your replies. The thing is, of course I would like more sleep but I am loathe to change bedtime as at the minute it is a lovely ritual, and I kind of think which is better, an easy bedtime but a few night wakings, or a nightmarish few hours where we try to get him to self settle but then he sleeps through?

Last week I had kind of reconciled myself with the fact that I was going to be a cosleeper, extended bf- er type mother given the way things are going but then ds had his 9 mo check and the hv seemed really concerned about his sleep (as that was the only thing I said wasn't great - weaning, other developmental stuff is fine) and she told me she would do a home visit to discuss his sleep further. She is coming tomorrow

She's probably worried about the amount of sleep you are getting, maybe she just needs reassuring that you are OK. It sounds like you're doing a fab job and your DS's sleep is completely normal. How would you feel about asking for evidence? You don't have to be confrontational or anything, you could just nod and smile and say something like "that's interesting, have you got anything I could read on that subject?".

Or you could cancel. Or hide behind the sofa and pretend to be out Or just tell her flat out that you feel more comfortable with your method of parenting. Dr Sears' website has got some great articles if you want something to back yourself up- Here

I fed to sleep until they wouldn't any more That was at about 10 months or so. Now bedtimes are so much more difficult, and they still don't sleep through. We cosleep from te first waking, and I feed whenever a cuddle and dummy don't send them to sleep straight away. That is the way we get most sleep.

If you're happy doing what you're doing, I would say that to the HV. 9 months seems very early to be sleeping through to me - my twins are just over 1 and still feed 2 or 3 times each in the night, and need a few cuddles on top of that. I think it's lovely to give them the comfort and drink in the night.

Don't be pressurised by your HV. You will know if your baby isn't getting enough sleep.

I mentioned to my HV that my DS was mostly sleeping through the night but was waking between 4 and 5, usually for the day, and she jumped on me right away, telling me I needed to do controlled crying etc. It was totally nonsensical because basically he's wide awake at that time and if I don't go into him he jumps around the cot falling over and hitting his head before bawling because he's pissed off. No way would he go back to sleep at that time, even if I feed him, cuddle him, bring him into the bed, he's just wide awake. I tried to say that to her but she just dismissed me which seriously got my goat

She's not the first one to get heavy on me about sleep. It must be part of their training or something. A lot of the HVs I've met are lovely but some of them seem to love feeling important and if you mention any vague problem they go off on one spouting useless advice and not really listening to what you need. A friend of mine was commented "I know, it's hard isn't it?" to another friend at a HV clinic one time and the HV who was earwigging immediately jumped in saying "Oh dear, what's hard, is the baby not sleeping, I can give you some help with that..." After about 5 minutes of waffle from the HV my friend finally managed to tell her that they were talking about how hard it is to retie your bra when you've just given the baby a feed! She said the HV was most put out and got in a terrible huff, the eejit!

You're not obliged to see the HV, nor are you obliged to listen to her advice. When she comes around tomorrow just lie and say you've sorted the sleeping and everything's fine.

DD fed to sleep until about 10-11 months, then she started waking up as I stood up to put her down. She learnt to settle with one of us there. Now she feeds downstairs after tea and not immediately before bed, as the bedtime feed was turning into play time, not sleep cue (she's 17mo). I'm a bit sad to have lost that special 10 mins with her, but she was ready for it and that's the main thing.

At 9mo, she was still waking once or twice in the night. I never thought that less than 9 months later she'd be going to sleep without bf and settling herself throughout the night without crying. Going at her speed seems to have given her the confidence (?) to do it herself.

I agree with taking HV with a pinch of salt. You know your DS, if he's otherwise happy and seems to be getting enough sleep, don't rush him to drop any feeds.

I'm lucky that we seem to have great HVs round here that don't go on the power trip or give the unwanted advice that I keep reading about on here. Unless I'm just giving off Don't Lecture Me vibes when I go to clinics.

Cancel the hv, tell her it is all sorted or that you have embraced life as a extended bf cosleeper:)

If you a happy all is good, there are whole cultures doing what you do. There older children don't have sleep issues...

I don't think stopping feeding to sleep necessarily means them sleeping through the night. My 2-and-5-months old stopped feeding to sleep (and indeed bf full stop) a year ago and still very very seldom sleeps through.

If you want to give your DS a bit of 'practice' self-settling in a gentle way, how about for the daytime nap you start off as you are by pushing the buggy....then stop the buggy just as he's looking as though he's nearly off. If he screams blue murder push again for a bit and repeat. Kind of the buggy-movement version of the pantley pull off, until eventually you can put him in the buggy and he'll go off with barely any movement.