Feeding to sleep at night

[stillhopefulforanother]

My DD is 10 weeks old. I also have a DS who is 2 yr and 3 months.

I am starting to implement a sort of bedtime routine that ties into my sons bedtime routine. After he goes to bed, I will start to bring DD into our room (where her Moses) is and feed her. At the moment I take her back downstairs so I can have dinner with DH.

I currently let DD suck and feed til I can sense she's had enough and is ready to sleep. She can be on the breast for ages in the evening though (a couple of hours), just grazing dozing sucking etc. I feel so bad and worry about this. But it's so easy and I can sense when to put her in her Moses. She then only wakes once.

Is this so bad?

It is completely natural. You may experience the four month sleep regression due to her inability to self soothe and the feed to sleep association but this is by no means guaranteed as all babies are different.

If you want to, you could give her the opportunity to self soothe by putting down drowsy but awake but a lot of babies aren't particularly receptive to this idea at 10 weeks old. They want the cuddles and comfort.

No its bloody fantastic!

You're managing to bf. You and your family are getting some sleep. Win win.

As you'll remember things change so fast anyway. If it suits you all for now I'd vote for just going with it.

Thanks so much. I am overthinking as usual. I did it with my first.

Next week I will stop taking her back downstairs and just go straight into our room to feed her. Then try to give her the chance to self soothe when I feel she's ready to go in her bed.

So it's normal for babies of 10 weeks to suckle for ages in the evening?

If it suits you then just do it. I fed ds2 to sleep and it didn't do us any harm. whatever works for you is good.

Completely normal. Dd was at least 12 weeks before i could put her to bed before 10pm. She just wanted to sit on me feeding on and off. We gradually brought it earlier.

OP sound great to me! Similar to what I did with both Ds's

Phew. Bless u all, feel loads better.

One last question - a silly one really. When did you eat your evening meal in amongst the feeding, sucking etc

DH likes cooking so he would get it ready. I tended to wolf it down in about 5 mins flat. As bedtime got earlier we would then have a late meal afterwards.

With DS (mega screamer reflex baby) i ate 1 handed and usually standing up bouncing him for months!

DD is considerably easier and at that stage i was bf while dh cooked and would either eat with 1 hand while she slept in my arms (putting down would lead to immediate waking for a long time) or while i bf. But I'm one of those lucky people who can bf anywhere whilst doing 3 other things. Once dd was going down earlier i tended to eat with DS at 5ish and just have a snack later. I still do about half the time.

I don't think there's a right answer, just whatever gets you through.

Thanks for posting this. My dh and in laws are all telling me I should be putting ds down to get himself off to sleep and making me feel like a shitty Mother ("you're instilling bad habits in him") for nursing him to sleep at night.

I've been a maternity nurse for 18 years and have never told a Mum off for doing this. Maybe gently suggested at about 3 months if the sleeping (or NOT) sleeping at night was getting her down.

Ds is only a week old and when I tried to let him cry himself to sleep under the eyes of my in laws I was damn near hysterical after 10 minutes and told them all where to go with their self soothing.

:). Good for you. So many people have opinions about these things.

I feed to sleep at night and also wear my baby in a sling for naps. I simply don't have the time to rock and settle her in her Moses during the day as I have a toddler. She never sleeps that long in a Moses (if I get the chance to do it), so end up with her in a sling anyway.

I worry about both these things but havnt got the energy to change it right now. Just tired, have constant colds, coughs so always feeling under the weather. So just want to take easiest course of action!

That's rubbish I know.

OP, you're doing everything right. There's some great advice on here.

I fed my dd to sleep for the first few months and held her for most of her naps. I ate many an evening meal with one hand -dh used to chop it up into small chunks for me!

Like you I used to worry about bad habits/rod and backs etc) People told me I had to 'be strong' and just put her down. I did sometimes wonder whether things would ever get easier.

Anyway -she is now the happiest, most confident little toddler AND she goes into her cot wide awake and settles herself to sleep.

I really believe that you cannot spoil them when they are so tiny. I actually miss those days now, and she even feeds to sleep once in a while which I just love now.

I think this is completely normal. I fed my DCs to sleep until they wouldn't feed to sleep anymore! It was the easiest way :)

Re eating, I DH cut my dinner up so I could eat it one handed while feeding. I draped a muslin over their heads but they (the babies!) did get lasagne stained sometimes

Enjoy these special close times :)

Thanks SO much, I really appreciate that. Really I do.

I'm going to stop fretting and just carry on as I am and try not to imagine problems that don't exist.

I don't mind doing this, in fact I love it. So to hell, I'll carry on.

going to bed feeling better. Thanks.

I'm still feeding 13mo DD to sleep. She'll go down for Daddy but not for me. I don't mind - I'm still getting cuddles this way; she's on the go too much during the day to get any!

Sounds great to me. My dd2 did this, it as lovely and didn't cause any problems at all. Now at 14m she self settled easily and sleeps all night. She self weaned at just over 12m and i do kiss those lovely bedtime feeds and cuddles...

Hi me again (OP),

I'm still stressing about this. I went to playgroup today and many of the mums I spoke to said they had stretch bedtime routines and put their babies in awake! But they did all have dummies.

I don't want to use a dummy, but now thinking I should!

Why am I comparing myself to others? I believe self settling is a developmental thing and they will do it when ready. Am I right? Or just hopeful?

I think one of the best things I ever read on mumsnet was someone pointing out that something is only a problem if it is a problem for you.

If feeding to sleep and no dummy works for you and you and your DC are happy then everyone else's opinions on the matter are irrelevant so just practice the good old nodding and smiling and then ignore.

I fed to sleep until dd weaned at 18 months and we still cosleep most of the night. I have had various levels of appalledness at these things but really I couldn't give a toss because we are happy and that is what matters :)

Thanks so much. I felt the mums looked at me aghast today. Made me worried. My sister talked se sense into me.

I love the advice, it's not a problem for us at the moment, I don't mind and it works.

Perhaps I'm looking too far ahead here instead of focusing on surviving the day.

Eh? Use a dummy when it's working so well for you bfing your baby to sleep? Why bother.

My ds3 is 15 months and I still bf him to sleep after I've put my other 3 dcs to bed. They go to bed no bother most nights and I bf'd them to sleep until they were 2.

Doing what other people do isn't necessarily right you know. It's far better to do what you feel is right and working for you.

And giving your baby love, attention and bm is very right!

If fed dd1 to sleep until well over 1 it worked and was easy. I stopped when it stopped working, though probably I would have liked to change things earlier but cba when it wasn't actually a problem.

Dd2 I was planning on doing the same thing/similar as it made putting dd1 to bed easy ish too. I started going into our bedroom straight away after putting dd1 in bed and feeding in the dark to sleep great....... Then around four/five months dd2 started fussing a lot on the breast at which point I would lay her on the bed then pick up again when she calmed down a bit but one night she fell asleep by herself very peacfully! I was aghast, anyway now dd2 mostly self settles and she is 9 months. I would never have been able to do the same with dd1 without her screaming blue murder.

A dummy may be tempting now but it could be difficult to remove later on when she's older. Also, I know of many parents who have had to get up to replace a dummy several times a night.

As for self settling I agree that it's developmental, rather than taught. Although there are some things you can do to 'set the scene' in terms of routine etc. You sound like you're doing all of these things.

I fed/ am feeding both mine to sleep, both liked to feed and doze for a while in the evenings so I just went with it.

I think the thing to remember is that sooner or later, they won't. By 6 months I had persuaded DS to self-settle in his cot most of the time, and now DD has just turned 6 months I'm starting to work in the same with her.

Really, if it's not a problem for you, it's nit a problem IMO.

*on

*not

Ok. So tried letting ds self settle and it broke my heart.
So definitely going to feed to sleep for the foreseeable.

But- he's getting real bad wind if I don't burp him and if I burp him he wakes up and goes berserk. Ideas?