Do you nurse your child to sleep?

[shepster]

And, if so, are you experiencing any sleep-related issues? DS, nearly 13 months old now, is breastfed to sleep at bedtime and at naps. Didn't used to think this was a problem, but, as he is still not sleeping through, but waking up pretty frequently- and I usually, but not always, BF him back to sleep (oh, the usual culprits might also be the cause: teething, ear infections, cold), wonder if I have to now break this routine. Everything I read says to put your baby to sleep awake but drowsy. Find this really difficult to do. Just wondered what your experiences are?

Hi there. I fed my DD to sleep till she was about 7mo and weaning was going well (she's also 13months) and whenever she woke up. She woke up loads - often 4/5 times before midnight and then 3/4 times after. I would only feed her if it was after midnight by the time she was 7mo as I felt as she was eating a huge tea and yoghurt, she probably wasn't hungry (I did talk this through my my HV).

About this time I bought the 'No Cry Sleep Solution' and tried to implement Pantley's suggestion of removing the baby from the breast before fully asleep and I also began trying to get her in the cot and out of our bed. It took a while and she protested a lot, but I got a rocking chair and rocked until she was nearly asleep and then put her in which took her mind off the breast. Sometimes she'd go wild when I tried to put her in (even after being drowsy), other times I might have left it a bit late and she was asleep. I aimed to have her floppy in my arms, but so that when I laid her in the cot she might make a sound as I laid her down or she shuffled until comfy. VERY rarely does she go to sleep from being fully awake. We do the same for daytime naps.

I didn't see the astonishing results some people do from Pantley's technique and I just had to keep a it for months, but it has got better.

The other thing I did was get a musical cot toy which I always put on when I put her in the cot to create a sleep cue and say 'x go night, night'. No idea how much they work, but thought it worth a go.

At 10 mo old she slept though the night for the first time once, but didn't do it again for another month when she did it for nearly a week consecutively. I then decided if she could sleep through sometimes she didn't need milk in the night and offer her a cup of water instead (by this time she was eating solids really well too). This was relatively painless, but we do rock her as above if she wakes at night. By Christmas, I dropped her daytime feeds as I was going back to work and now feed her first thing and last thing before bed.

So I've sort of adapted a few things to find what works and which don't involve her falling asleep on me (lovely as it is!). HTH.

Forgot to say, it makes no difference if she goes to sleep from wide awake - she can still wake up loads! The last 3 nights she slept through, but last night she coughed herself awake and wouldn't go back to sleep. If it's longer than 30 mins trying, me or DH bring her in with us as we all need to sleep at the end of the day! I don't think you can force babies into sleeping - I think there's things you can do that help, but mine just seemed to do it when she was ready!

I feed both dd2 and 3 to sleep every night. DD2 is 3.5 but if she waked in the night she goes back to sleep with a little cuddle. DD2 is 18m but won't go back to sleep without bf. I tried the NCSS with dd2 but I couldn't get it to work, bf is a comfort she needs and won't let go of. DD3 is slightly better a she will fall asleep with bf and even pushes me away some nioghts.
I have tried rocking them both but DD3 squirms out of your arms and gets upset, even as a small baby she was like that.

A big help can be getting DP to get them to sleep, DD3 loves being asleep on him and if DD2 is fractious in the night and she wakes DD3 I can often give her to DP to settle.

What could help us is another bedroom for the DD's but that is another story and I can see that ny the time they get one they will be unable to sleep without us

Shepster- ignoring what everyone else says, how do you feel about the sleep situation? Is it causing you and your family a problem? The behaviour you've described is totally normal, plenty of babies of this age are waking up in the night. Most adults also wake up a couple of times a night!

I think a lot of sleep 'problems' are just normal behaviour that our society has deemed undesirable. It's hard to know what is normal when everyone talks about sleeping through the night as soon as a baby is born.

This is a really good book about sleep that explains about normal behaviour and has some tips for coping.

Good luck :)

My advice, based on everyone stressing me out about feeding my kid to sleep, is that if it works for you then don't worry about it. Once they stop feeding to sleep or it stops working then you can come up with a solution. Until then enjoy the snuggly feed to sleep time. It's a lovely precious feeling to watch your little one nod off

Thanks, everyone. Good to hear I'm not the only one. I don't mind it in the least, except that DS wakes so often at night (and is so hard to resettle lately) that I had to wonder if it has anything to do with how I put him down. And, quite frankly, the sleeplessness is killing me. Not sure how I will proceed, but do appreciate hearing your experiences. So good not to be alone! And, yes, I do enjoy our time together, even if, at 3am, I am groaning for shut eye. He is not a baby for long.

DS2 is 10 months. I feed him to sleep and we also co sleep so he latches on at night when if he wakes. I have a lot of people on at me to stop, get him in his own room, get your life back etc etc but we have discussed it (me and DH that is not DS!) and we are both happy with it as it minimises sleep disturbance all round which is pretty vital since we're both working. We figure he won't still be a night time booby monster when he's at senior school so enjoy him being a baby while he is one.

I'm still co sleeping with dd who is 19 months. She only goes to sleep with a bf and still wakes fifty percent of the time a few times at night and only settles with bf. Don't mind at all because I'm enjoying it tbh. feel lucky to be able to settle her so quickly and easily and still love sniffing her little blonde head under my nose all night ! can't buy that x

Hi shepster - my DS is 14 mos and I have just stopped feeding him to sleep in the last few weeks. It came about almost by accident - over Xmas DS decided he would no longer take a bottle of EBM if someone else was putting him to sleep, so on the nights I was working or out he went down without milk. Also over xmas my Mum got up with him overnight for two weeks which resulted in him being pretty much night weaned and the wakings significantly reduced. And then a few weeks back we had a couple of days when DH was looking after DS almost all day so he got in the habit of going down for a nap without a BF. All of this made me confident that DS did not need to be getting as many BF's a day as he was having, especially since he is doing really well with solids, and also that he could go to sleep without boob. The last two weeks he has had a BF on waking and one mid-afternoon. He goes to sleep with a song and a cuddle from DH and sleeps through until 6am (obvs now I have said this he will be up all night :) ). It might be coincidence but it seems as if stopping BF'ing him to sleep has improved his nighttime sleeping - along with his age, the fact he is doing good with solids etc. etc. Our doctor told us that provided he is still getting 2 BF's a day and a balanced diet, there is no need for him to have bottles of cows mlk too -just as well because he hates it. Of course you must do what is right for you but stopping feeding to sleep has made a huge difference to us - and I feel like I can start catching up on 13 mos of sleep deprivation!! Good luck.

BF to sleep is not necessarily the problem though. I BFed DS to sleep until 23 months and he usually slept through. The only times he did not was between 12 and 18 months when, after a long bout of illness, he did not eat very much during the day. We discovered by chance (and keeping a diary) that he slept better if he had pasta in the evening, so started doing that. He now eats whatever we eat at dinner and still sleeps through... Maybe experiment with feeding him a bit more during daytime? Also look at the timing of his meals: DS does not sleep well if he does not have a good snack at 4 (maybe a banana and a yoghurt with 3-4 squeezed clementines) and then dinner with us around 7-7.30. I am the same: I am awake now because DH insisted on eating early (7) and I woke up at 4.15 starving (though I am 30 weeks pg and lost weight over the last 3 weeks due to illness, so I might be extra hungry at the moment).

Thanks for the extra posts. As a couple of you have said, I don't mind the BF at all and, in fact, really enjoy the relationship we have. Trouble for me now is that he no longer resettles quickly, when once, seems like an eternity ago, he used to have a quick BF, then go back to sleep and settle quickly in his cot. Now, he might fall asleep, but when I lay him in his cot, he's writhing around again. I can resettle him several times (often taking up to an hour) before he actually relaxes and stays asleep when put down. But as you say, SiuGeneris, BF may not be problem. Might be, but turns out the little one has some sort of measles (broke out in a rash yesterday), so these last few days of horrendous nighttimes have a bonafide reason. Poor chap. Will definitely try to keep a food diary to see if what/how much/when he eats makes a difference when he is better. Going away on a hen weekend next weekend, so we may have a change in feeding habits similar to yours clarejane. Funnily enough, I'm not really sure how I feel about that. I want to continue to BF, but also sleep too! At any rate, we will see how it goes. Thanks all.

Shepster - hope your ds is ok.

Just wanted to add that when ds stopped always falling asleep on the boob we continued feeding in a low key environment and then just popped him back in the cot regardless. He soon got the idea that he had to sleep. It meant I never gave up feeding to sleep I kept doing it when it worked and put him in his cot even if it didn't. When you say writhing about do you mean crying? If he's not crying I'd be tempted to just leave him. Ddcan mess around for ages in her cot before going to sleep..