Parents of older children who fed to sleep when they were babies

[darksideofbuttonmoon]

DD is 6 months and has always fed to sleep. When she was a newborn it honestly never occurred to me to get her to sleep any other way, and now it's a habit that she doesn't seem in a hurry to break.
She feeds asleep for naps (which she takes on me), she feeds asleep in the evening and then goes into her cot asleep, and she feeds back to sleep if she 'wakes' at night. I say 'wakes' because she doesn't wake fully just kind of whinges in a half sleep that turns into a cry if she's left.
I keep reading that it's a bad habit but the thought of trying to break it makes me feel a bit ill! DP has tried to settle her, for example, but she screams the place down and it's difficult to listen to when I know she'll settle with a feed. Likewise, I'm not loving the idea of pacing up and down with her for hours when a five minute feed will see her (and me!) back to sleep.
Can anyone offer reassuring stories of their own feed-to-sleep babies who just grew out of it on their own, or am I REALLY going to have break this habit myself [has a little tantrum] ?

[Koothrapanties]

Dd isnt much older than your baby, but she is fed to sleep at bedtime and now sleeps through at 9 months. I used to feed her every time she woke in the night, but she didn't always need it. I realised that at about 7mo she wasn't actually hungry until about 4am so would shh and pat at the other wakings. She stopped waking as much and has recently started sleeping through.

I know it's controversial, but have you considered using a dummy for the daytime naps? Dd would only sleep on me until we tried a dummy and now she will sleep pretty much anywhere. As soon as she seems tired I put her in the swing or buggy with a dummy and comforter and she is asleep in minutes. Before that I would have to rock her to sleep for ages before she would fall asleep and would wake if I put her down.

[addictedtosugar]

DS1 fed to sleep til he decided to stop at 9 months. He was then a nightmare to get to sleep til about 2.5yrs. Aged 5 he still wakes at 5am most days.

DS2 fed to sleep til about 9 months too. He was sleeping through at 7 months, and taught himself to self settle when he stopped feeding to sleep.

If your happy to do it, why make life harder than you have to? Feeding to sleep works. Why change before you want to / have to?

[PrincessAnnaOfArundale]

both mine were fed to sleep. DS1 until he was 1. DS2 til he was about 9 months. Both of them grew out of it on their own when they were ready. Never needed to sleep train or leave them to cry etc. Just do what works. I promise when they're 16 they won't still need you feeding them to sleep. I never understand the big deal with it to be honest. They're babies. Of course they need comfort and help learning how to go to sleep and learning how to be alone and not scared. Both mine (now 6 years and 2 years old) fall asleep independently and sleep through 11-12 hours a night. Do what gets you through it with the most amount of sleep and the least amount of crying I say!

[Wincher]

But surely that's what bf is FOR, getting babies to sleep?! I never quite understand why people want to mess with this entirely natural process. I remember when ds1 stopped feeding to sleep having a bit of a panic about how I would get him to sleep, but I did somehow. Ds2 is 10 months and is fairly often still awake after his bedtime feed, but goes off to sleep fine in his cot (and sleeps through... don't hate me). It all works out in the end, please don't waste too much time worrying about it at this stage.

[rootypig]

There is no problem with feeding to sleep per se. It's just that most mothers crack up with the sleep deprivation after 6 months, and there is an alternative that involves everyone sleeping through the night.

If you're happy to feed to sleep every time she rouses, knock yourself out.

[ElephantsNeverForgive]

It was nevef a problem, DD BF to sleep well past school age, but from 7 months she'd go to sleep for DH and later for the nice lady from nursery who babysat or my DSIS.

She grew out of it because she got to beavy for my crap knee to carry her upstairs, she still BF until dozy, just woke up to wallk upstairs and went to bed.

[StealthPolarBear]

Ds didn't grow out of it but when he was about 18 months I used to get to near the end of a feed and then say I needed the loo (was pg so usually did) and he'd let me go without a fuss. Usually by the time I got back he was asleep. It was a short move from there to being able to put him to bed on the odd occasion without a feed. Dd grew out of it I think - don't remember any drama.

[qumquat]

My 6mo dd never feeds to sleep any more. Bed and nap times are a real battle. Enjoy it while you can!!

[MillionPramMiles]

It depends what works for you.

Personally having to get up several times a night to feed dd back to sleep (I didn't want to co-sleep and dd didn't like it either), not being able to delegate bf to dp, not being able to have a night away (expressing was such a faff), having to continue bf beyond 6 months etc were all things I really didn't want to have to do. I never understood why this was seen as the 'easy' option.

So I offered dd a dummy instead. Was much easier for one of us to pop the dummy back in and by 9-10 mths or so dd could do it herself. Handy for nap times on long car journeys too. Helps if you're sure baby isn't hungry (dd dropped her night feeds herself and ate well during the day).

Highly unlikely you're damaging your baby by feeding to sleep though so do whatever you find easiest.

[Bryonyc]

Mine both grew out of it between 1 and 2, can't remember when exactly.

I carried on feeding them at bedtime until 2, but it didn't send them to sleep in the same way, they would go awake into the cot afterwards. I decided to stop feeding completely at 2, it was totally painless, no tears, they both accepted it totally within less than a week .

They are both very good sleepers now, I say goodnight and walk out of the room, I don't feel in any way I made a "rod for my own back".

[ElephantsNeverForgive]

It's the easy option because feeding a DC to sleep watching the TV with subtitles is a 1000x better way to spend an hour than, creaping about holding your breath after spending an hour and a half hush patting, rocking and comforting a fractious child and wispering, "Go the Fuck to Sleep".

It doesn't stop you going out, DH and DSIS could apply youghurt, juice and cuddles and get DD2 to sleep and DD2 herself worked out that waking in the night was not a way to make her DM happy.

[neversleepagain]

I had a fear that feeding to sleep would cause bad sleep associations so planned to never do it. Our first child(ren) are twins so it made me even more against feeding to sleep. We had premature sleepy newborns and from day one I always roused them before I put them down their cots after feeds. I also never let them sleep on me.

Both are great sleepers and always have been thankfully.

Rembering that they won't always be immobile, sleepy and small and feeding/rocking to sleep gets more difficult.

[Hakluyt]

I just think you should go for whatever gets the most people the most sleep. And lying next to a baby feeding it to sleep seems so much less stressful and happy than spending hours trying to get them to sleep other ways. I bet that feeding to sleep actually give mothers more "time off" than other methods. And certainly much less stress.

[rootypig]

Rembering that they won't always be immobile, sleepy and small and feeding/rocking to sleep gets more difficult.

Absolutely. So difficult to change their habits when they're 2, or nearly, and bolshie mobile and vocal with a will of iron.

[Hakluyt]

Once again, I would rather spend 20 minutes rocking or stroking my 2 year old to sleep than the stress of "sleep training"

[neversleepagain]

I would hate to rock two toddlers back to sleep every time they woke and couldn't resettle themselves

I prefer having two 22 month olds that sleep without waking for 12.5 hours each night!

[neversleepagain]

And what do you do when they won't lie next to you on the bed and would rather run around the room? They won't be immobile for long!

[DefiniteMaybe]

I haven't read the full thread but I fed my dd to sleep for every sleep until I stopped bf at 28 months.
She'll be 3 next month and at bedtime falls asleep within 10 minutes with me sitting next to her bed. I only have to sit there because she shares a room with ds and they mess about if I'm not there.
If she wakes up in the night, which is rare, she falls back asleep by herself. She is a million times easier at night than ds who was never fed to sleep because the hv told me it was the wrong thing to do.

[lola88]

both were fed DN 7 goes to sleep alone and DS 2 takes his bottle to bed alone. I don't think its that bad a habit. Deal with the issues now don't worry about the ones that might possibly come up 2 or 3 years down the line.

[Hakluyt]

"And what do you do when they won't lie next to you on the bed and would rather run around the room? They won't be immobile for long!"

How would not feeding them to sleep stop that?

[limon]

It's not a bad habit! It's normal and natural! I fed DD to sleep til she was 18 months old. My husband then started putting her to bed to break it.

[PurplePidjin]

DS was fed to sleep and slept on me, either cuddled on the sofa or in the sling. One day, when he was about 11 months (just started cruising a lot and was ready to drop to one nap a day) he decided he wanted to go in his cot, and fed to sleep for that. About 2 months later he decided he didn't need boob for sleep during the day so feeds dropped to breakfast and bedtime

Then he hit 15 months. One night, he stuck a nipple in his mouth, spat it out again and giggled at me. I tried again. Same reaction. I put him down in his cot, told him i loved him and walked away. It's been that easy ever since

[Clayhead]

I wish I had enjoyed it more instead of listening to people who told me it was the wrong thing to do.

Dcs are 13 & 11 now and I can't remember how or when it stopped.

[TeWiSavesTheDay]

Mine grew out of it around one when I stopped breastfeeding.

Don't worry about it!

[Hakluyt]

Mine went from feeding to sleep,to cuddling to sleep, to being read to, to audio books/music . None of them are "bad sleep associations". If I ever meet the person who invented the expressions "bad sleep associations" and "self settling" I will personally have his (and I bet it's a he) bollocks for earrings. They are just more ways to impose external controls on something that all mammals do naturally, and more sticks to beat mothers with. More ways of telling them they are doing it wrong.