Nursing to Sleep

[emvy]

My 10 week old is EBF and up until now we’ve been feeding to sleep and co-sleeping. This has worked for us and we’ve been happy, however, i’m starting to worry that some sleep associations are being created that are going to cause problems down the line.

Recently, after waking for his night need (usually between 3-4 hours after going down), he’ll repeatedly wake up numerous times throughout the rest of the night, searching for the breast to re-settle. This can happen constantly, every few minutes for pretty much the entire night (say 2-7ish). Not only is this exhausting for me (I feed him lying down but keep having to help him latch on when he’s rooting), but I fear also must be tiring for him too?!

Is it possible that he’s simply seeking out milk & the tool of using the breast to fall back asleep because he’s right next to me, or is it that this has become the only way he can soothe himself back to sleep?

He rarely goes off to sleep in any other way - very rarely he will fall asleep in the car & only on a handful of occasions has he been rocked to sleep. Pretty much every single time he’s fed to sleep. The other morning he as rooting so I got up and moved away and he went back to sleep on his own, so I worry that the co-sleeping is making it worse.

How can I break this? It seemed like yesterday we had all the time in the world & now suddenly 3 months is almost upon us.

I have a Next to Me Crib that he will sometimes do a few hours in, I’m keen to transition him into there full time ASAP.

Thanks

It’s normal. Your milk has special properties that help with sleep for both you and your baby. You could spend months trying to find ways to settle him or you could spend months breastfeeding him to sleep which is what you are both biologically programmed to do.

Hi my dd is 13 weeks and she does the same! It’s so exhausting sometimes. She does go to sleep around 9/10 downstairs and I normally can take her upstairs and put her into the next to me without waking her and she sleeps anywhere between 2/4 am then she comes in with me and she just seems to feed constantly I try to put her back but she either wakes up or wakes up within 30 mins or so.

So no advice really just your not alone I’m hoping it will get better as she gets older

Feeding to sleep was the only way I could settle DD. I was worried about sleep associations, and we did go through a particularly bad patch of near constant feeding similar to what you’re describing. I tried to put a stop to it but trying to settle her in any other way just lead to screams, and if it did work it took forever. I realised that feeding to sleep was what got me the most sleep so I continued with it. DD is now 14 months. We co-slept initially and she gradually got down to waking just once or twice a night and going straight back to sleep. In the last few months she’s started either feeding to sleep and transferring easily into her cot, or even going into her cot awake and settling to sleep with putting from me or DH. She comes in with us if she wakes (a few times she has slept right through). I have absolutely no regrets. She’s starting to self soothe and sleep well without us having to resort to anything that involves crying and she’s naturally done it at her own pace.

By all means, if you’re struggling at the moment and feeding to sleep really isn’t working for you then try other ways of settling. But don’t worry about creating bad habits now. Do what works, until it doesn’t.

*patting

Thank you everyone, your replies have made me feel much better.

KTCluck, it’s such a relief to hear that your DD just gradually got better with it. I was really hoping this would be the case as I really don’t want to have to try & settle him in other ways when he’s upset if I don’t have to. Dustywillow, maybe there’s hope for us yet!

I also find it tricky in the day to get him to have any decent naps as he’ll wake after a few minutes and search for the nipple. I get stuck to the bed or sofa for hours on end! Still, hopefully this is just a phase as you say & I’ll continue giving the comfort he needs from nursing for now

Thanks all!

It’s a biological norm. Your baby should still be inside you. You can’t create unhelpful sleep associations at this age (or for a long time yet).

I had exactly the same with DD’s naps too. She got to about 6 months and would suddenly go to sleep in her pram with just a few pushes back and forth. Enjoy the excuse to sit on your bum and watch box sets while you can!

Hi @emvy (do I remember you from some of the mc threads? Congrats if so!). My baby is 9 weeks and I could have written your post...next2me and all.

Does he sleep in the pram or sling and all? Mine does, so I try to get at least one nap in one of those a day just so he isn't fed to sleep for every one. I've also started this week putting him in his next2me after he falls asleep. He usually wakes up so I repeat it a few times and then just give in, but want to get him used to it as he never sleeps in it at the moment. I'm not worried about feeding to sleep really - just glad to be able to soothe and comfort him, but would like him to sleep in his cot (attached to bed..) rather than the bed if possible.

Yes you do, harriet. Thank you and congrats to you too! I fell off the mc threads after I got pregnant & continued progressing. It caused me so much anxiety to be on them, it wasn’t doing me any good! They were amazing during & after my mc’s though - a real life saver!

Yes he does sleep in the sling but he needs to be very very sleepy from nursing before he goes into it. Even slightly less sleepy & i’ll have to stop & feed to get him back to super sleepy again on the boob. He does get a good solid hour in there though if I keep walking so you’re right, it’s a good way to get him to have a decent nap.

I do the same with the Next to Me. Sometimes he’ll go in for 3 hours, other times for a 20 minutes, other times for a few minutes. I just go with whatever & like you say, bring him into the bed after however long he’s managed. I’d also like him in there rather than on the bed, I’m hoping another thing that will just happen 😬

Yes I dropped off them too. I had 3 mcs before 8 weeks so once I'd passed that point I felt a lot more relaxed and spent less time online.

It's funny with the timing of things - on the one hand you've got the fourth trimester view to just go with the flow for first 3 months, on the other hand you've got people saying it's harder to break habits after 3 months...who knows?! I feel that he's so tiny still, and I'm also a bit lazy so it suits me to do what he wants for now.

A few hours in the next2me is brilliant!

on the other hand you've got people saying it's harder to break habits after 3 months...

Who are these —idiots— people?!

You could try and settle him with a dummy. 3 months is still early to do much about sleep but a dummy makes life much easier, and if you introduce it too late he won't take it.
I don't think the answer to ever single wake up should be the breast, that's not doing your baby any favours in the long term. Try giving a dummy first and bf only if he won't settle.

I wasted so much time and both me and my son cried many tears whenever I tried to get him to sleep like everyone said he "should" be.
I've now reached the conclusion that just do whatever works, worry about sleep associations later. Fed my son to sleep for about a year, broke the association quickly and painlessly.
I found a bouncy chair quite good at getting my non sleeping child to get to sleep btw, on case you've not tried it. Cried when he outgrew it.

tittygolightly I think I read it in some baby book or other. Just googled and this was the first link I came across. Not saying it's reliable but does seem to be a common view.
www.babysense.com/advice-and-tips/baby/good-vs-bad-sleep-habits-for-babies/

Fucking bonkers.

I think I'm with titty here.

Websites and books and advice like that drove me mad. Absolutely great if you've got a compliant child, makes you feel shit if you've not.

I’m with titty too. Those websites are full of great advice if you have an easy baby (in which case you probably don’t need them) but if you have a difficult absolute nightmare sleeper then all they do is stress you out about what you’re doing wrong. And then stress you out even more when their ‘helpful’ advice like ‘put them down drowsy’ makes you feel even worse when it just results in a screaming child. The advice is all well and good if it suits your baby. But my limited experience of one has shown me that it is useless otherwise.

My favourite line from that link is ‘If your baby consistently falls asleep on the breast, burp her at your shoulder and she will rouse a little’. Why the fuck would you wake them up?! (No offence harrietm87 , I spent many a sleepless night perusing such articles and trying their advice. Took me 6 months to realise it’s all bollocks and all it was doing was making me feel worse). If any of the advice works for you and your baby then great, follow it, I’ve no doubt that the sort of thing suggested does go hand in hand with a baby that sleeps well. However, whether that is due to the advice itself or the fact that the baby is naturally a better sleeper and therefore is more amenable to the ideas suggested who can say. And if your baby laughs in the face of such advice, like my feisty madam, then please don’t feel that you’re doing something wrong or your baby won’t ever sleep well for the rest of their life. You aren’t and they will.

No offence taken! My original point was how conflicting all the "advice" is - I've read so much (while stuck on the sofa breastfeeding!) and concluded that I'm going to ignore it!

God 10 weeks!! There's really nothing to break if you're comfortable co-sleeping and your arrangement works for you at the moment crack on.
My DD was exactly the same and graduated to her own cot without feeding to sleep very easily at 6 months. And I only put her in her own room because I realised I had been disturbing her in the night. She slept through straight away and I was secretly gutted. What I wouldn't give for her to snuggle me at night again. Just go with it I promise you aren't creating bad habits you're just beating yourself up for no good reason just like I did. :)

Also our naps were a nightmare she would only nap on me and would never be put down. That also just gradually got better. I believe the more you respond to babies when they're little the happier and easier they are once they get the confidence to sleep on their own 👍🏻

Believe it or not you will soon miss those days being stuck in the sofa! DD stopped wanting to lie in my arms and feed in early
December right when I’d counted on having hours of feeding time to do my Christmas shopping on line. Enjoy your babies ladies.

There’s no need to give your baby a rubber nipple aka a dummy when it has an actual breast available and you are happy to allow it.

My toddler has fed to sleep for the last two years and has in her OWN time learned to take herself off to sleep. We still co-sleep and I still feed her before bed but about 50% of the time it doesn’t send her off now but once she’s had enough she’ll take herself off to sleep in her own time.

Please don’t worry, your baby is doing what is entirely natural. We are mammals and I think most of us have forgotten how to be natural, but our babies have not. That’s all they know and everything they do is for their comfort, security and survival.

Hi OP. I did, many did, our children do eventually learn to fall to sleep without it.

I love this website, really helped me in the early days -

kellymom.com/bf/normal/comfortnursing/

I fed both of mine to sleep. With the first, I had also read those kinds of advice and tried getting her to sleep by rocking, putting down drowsy but awake, letting her cry as long as I could stand- didn't work! Gave up and carried on feeding to sleep until about 1 year when we tried reading stories instead and then she fell asleep while listening the learned to fall asleep on her own.

With the second I was too tired to bother with any of that rocking etc and didn't want to keep the older one awake with crying so just fed to sleep all the time. I could even doze a bit while feeding him (lying down). He sometimes still feeds to sleep, aged 2 but will also go to sleep on his own or with someone reading him a story.

Oh and from about 3 months they were in their own cotbed, just big enough for me to squash in too for a little while.