Feeding to sleep (have to as I have a toddler)

[stillhopefulforanother]

My baby is 3.5 months old and I've fed her to sleep from the start. I have a toddler who I don't want to wake so had to take the easiest course of action.

At the moment the baby only wakes once or twice a night. I am a bit worried about continuing to feed to sleep and creating problems. But can't face sleep training because crying will wake and upset my toddler.

Did anyone else have this situation? Did you create problems? How do you sleep train with a toddler?

Fed to sleep until 6 mo by which time had managed to get completely out of control with 30 mn daytime naps and waking every 40 mins all night, not for everyone but then did traditional controlled crying at 7 mo and took 3 nights before sleeping 7 til 7 with long daytime naps in the cot. It changed my life. Toddler actually remarkably resilient and hasn't really bothered him at all, they are now sharing a room and we have some earlier starts for the baby but toddler is a chronic early riser. Nothing you do now will last forever, change it when you feel ready and need to.

If you can't face sleep training now, then keep doing what you're doing/what feels right/what works for now.

If there are problems later, you can deal with them later, once your baby is a bit older and you feel more up to it.

FWIW I always fed to sleep, both DCs, had to go cold turkey with DC2 at 15mo for medical reasons, and it only took him two nights to get used to it. And DC1 slept through his crying anyway!

I didn't feed either of mine to sleep (both were bottle fed - many reasons) and gave dd (dc2) a dummy which she used to suck until she went to sleep - so I suppose it's similar to feeding to sleep in that the sucking offered her enough comfort and she drifted off. The problem was that every time it fell out, she woke up and cried until we replaced it. Just before her 6 month 'birthday' she fell asleep without it and hasn't had one since.

I did find that ds - who is 17 months older - was pretty good at sleeping through dd's noise. She wasn't ever just left to cry it out for hours and hours but we never went in straight away; we always waited a few minutes to see if she settled herself, which she sometimes did.

There have been times when she has struggled to settle and, after a week or so when we knew she wasn't ill or teething, we have loosely followed cc in that we would cuddle, say night night, stroke her face and then leave before returning to shush/comfort/resettle after 5 minutes. After a couple of goes she went to sleep. Again, this crying - which lasted 15-20 minutes in total - didn't disturb ds.

At 3.5 months though you probably have a while to go before needing to contemplate any sort of sleep training; you never know, she might start to sleep longer and drop the night feeds all by herself as she grows and you wean her - meaning that sleep training and any possible disturbance to your toddler's sleep isn't necessary anyway .

I'm not a fan of sleep training, I think babies/toddlers get there in their own time (and I was prepared to wait), so I fed DS1 to sleep from the word go and am doing the same with DS2.

I don't really see the problem with it - bfeeding releases hormones that makes both babies and mums sleepy - seems to me it's the norm. DS1 also slept to motion (so would fall asleep in buggy etc, sometimes on your knee if being cuddled) bottom line is he survived (as did we) despite doing what so many people would frown on.

Do what works for you - screw the world... (3 months is too young for controlled crying or crying it out anyway, so take the pressure off and at least give yourself until your baby is 6 months...)

I tried to put my dd down sleepy, but awake during the day and night. I also had a bit of a habit of bonking her down into the cot at night because of the angle of the cot, so even if she was asleep she would have been disturbed.

I still fed her 2+ times per night until she was 11 months old, when she went in with dd1 and i left her to cry if she woke. By this time she always went to sleep awake. She only ever woke once in the night to cry, once she realised that was it wrt nighttime milk she never woke again! And that once she didn't disturb my 3.5 year old. Toddlers must be designed not to be woken by younger siblings, because dd1 certainly gets woken by dd2 now they are 7.6 and 5, even though she never used to.

You don't have to feed to sleep but I understand that you do what works at the time. That said, IME it is MUCH harder to teach an older baby/toddler to sleep than a young baby. I did sleep training early and we all (baby included) seemed to have a much easier time of it than my friends who left it until their babies were older. But as other posters said it has to work for your family. Good luck!

I've fed to sleep and had to change for work as i can't always be there.

With DS i went against my instincts and did pupd with cry down. It was horrific. It didn't work and upset us both hugely. I still feel guilty about trying and he's 3.5.

Dd is 8m and I've spent the last 4+ m using the no cry sleep solution. She settles off the breast now but still has a cuddle(sometimes in the cot) to sleep. Basically at your stage just remove nipple just before sleep. They fuss. Replace nipple, count to ten, repeat until they fall asleep without sucking.

Dd still doesn't sleep through but when she wakes at night she usually just needs a quick cuddle. I don't feed her at all overnight, just water.

If work wasn't an issue I'd have happily fed to sleep and coslept until they didn't want to anymore.

Always fed to sleep as it worked for us (2yrs). DD started letting go of the boob and requesting to be taken to bed completely on her own. That was a lovely surprise! She wants me to be in the room when she falls asleep, and I don't mind that. I miss feeding her to sleep a bit now.
I don't think it creates problems, they all adjust in their own time (or with a nudge from he parent). Good luck!