breastfeeding to sleep confusion

[Smerlin]

Hi all

Am pregnant with my first so first post here but expect to be posting regularly in the future for tips! Am reading a lot about breastfeeding atm as am leaking colostrum already which has made me think about the job to come!

Have become a little confused by the advice I have read- everyone says that you breastfeed on demand as many times during the day/night as wanted which I understand. However at a certain point the advice seems to say that you should avoid letting the baby fall asleep at the breast as they then rely on this to sleep/get upset when wake up in their crib/cot. Is this something you worry about only after a certain number of weeks/months but not in the early stages?

I imagined that if you are feeding at 1am, 3am, 5am etc then the baby is likely to fall asleep at the end of feeding or do they stay awake for a while and then you put them back into their crib (I have one of those Bednest ones).

Any advice for a clueless newbie appreciated!

It is contradictory and confusing and there is no right or wrong - you kind of just have to do what you can and what your baby is happy with.

If you breast feed to sleep all of the time, your baby will probably need to suck to get to sleep. Babies suck for comfort as well as for milk and my DS2 who is now 13 months and not been fed to sleep for nearly 12 months, still makes sucking noises to get himself to sleep!

The reality is that it is normally extremely hard not to let your baby fall asleep when feeding. It is tiring for them, the milk makes them sleepy and it is virtually impossible to wake them up. I found it goes against every instinct to then try to wake them up to just put them to sleep again!

So certainly in the first few months just go with the flow. However, you will probably find that after that, your baby will be less sleepy after a feed and at this point you should try putting them down when not completely asleep. This opens a whole new can of worms in terms of sleep training but that's an entirely different chapter to worry about. Just enjoy the first few months!

Any advice that says to avoid letting the baby fall asleep at the breast (and there are 'experts' who are advising this from birth) can be ignored, as the adviser clearly knows nothing about normal baby needs and well-being.

BoysRule is right, that you might want to review it when the baby is a lot older, but it's not really a big deal.

The way I see it, nature has given me a tool almost guaranteed to knock a tired baby out. Why wouldn't I use it?

I got in the habit of playing particular music whilst feeding DS to sleep. He gradually came to associate that piece of music with feeling sleepy. Now I just have to plonk the iPad in his room with his playlist and he drops right off.

They don't need feeding to sleep when they are five.

Just go with it and do what you want to do :)

(In my experience even when an older baby is used to feeding to sleep they will quite happily go to sleep for someone else without being fed anyway so it's not usually an issue - it's just mum who they want feeding from.)

I'd have had to wake mine up to avoid feeding to sleep. It's helpful if they'll sleep in a sling, buggy, or in your arms, but it's not a big deal.

I fed Ds1 to sleep until he was 15 months, when I weaned him. The first night with no breastfeed he had a cup of cows milk while I sang and read him a story, then put him in his cot and he went to sleep all by himself. I was surprised it was so easy!

I currently feed my 10 month old Ds2 to sleep, and I'm hoping it will go the same way when the time comes! He does sometimes stay awake during bedtime feeds, and I end up putting him down awake. He then usually falls asleep by himself with no problems, unless he's not feeling well, or teething, and he's feeling a bit clingy.

They're all different, so some babies may struggle to sleep without a feed, others are fine. But it all works out in the end!

Good ok- can put that thought to one side then.

I looked after my youngest sister a lot when she was a baby as there is a massive age gap between us and my Mum was pretty much knocked out by the birth so am hoping that I will remember all the nappy changing, winding etc stuff when my own baby comes but my Mum bottlefed so haven't seen much about breastfeeding and the more I read about it, the more there seems to be to learn!

Hopefully some of it will come naturally...

Ignore advice. Come on mumsnet. Do what seems to make sense.

Easy