If you don’t feed your baby to sleep...

[LolaNova]

Can I ask how you put them to bed?

DD (almost 5mo) will fall asleep in her cot for naps occasionally although often she ends up napping in her pushchair, bouncer or sling as I also have DS 2.5 and can’t leave him to take her upstairs and get her settled. At bedtime she feeds for hours and we end up going round in circles with feeding, putting her in the cot, her getting angry, getting her settled, sleeping for a bit, and then getting angry again, feeding again etc. Eventually she goes down properly at about 9/10 and does sleep through the night so it’s not a massive issue but I would love to have some kind of child free evening eventually! She does feed to sleep, and then I end up waking her a little bit as I put her down (deliberately) but I wonder if there is a way to do it without breastfeeding for hours on end!

A dummy!

@Letsallscreamatthesistene I managed to convince her to take a dummy for about three days last month 😂 Sadly she went right off the idea.

I just put my son in the crib then the cot. I've never had a problem with allowing a baby to self settle or to cry for a short time. I always put my son down and left him for up to 10 minutes to settle down. If there was nothing wrong he would fall asleep within that time, nothing else was ever needed. I did that for sleeps in the day and at night. Yes he sometimes cried for a few minutes but I've never been one for not being able to let a baby cry for a few minutes. There's no need to rush straight there the second they cry IMO. I don't think cry it out or controlled crying is wrong at all, and certainly not child abuse as has been suggested on here in the past. My son has self settled from birth and slept through from 3 months. However I would NEVER EVER have left him crying for longer than 10 minutes. After that time if he hadn't settled I'd go back in and see what was wrong.

16 months old. Cuddled to sleep and transferred asleep. For naps they are either on us or in the car/buggy. It's not perfect but it works and the cuddles can be good. He's been like this since he was new.

Change your routine around so you feed downstairs or feed before bath time.
Use lots of sleep cues - white noise or sleep music, lovey/comforter etc
Put her in the cot and shush and pat her. Only pick her up if she gets really upset and cuddle but put her down again as soon as calm and shush/pat/stroke face/hands until asleep

At this age I would expect a dream feed at 10pm to get through the night.

I’d stop feeding to sleep in the day time too. Feed on waking in a feed-play-nap-feed cycle.

I generally do feed to sleep but also sometimes pat/rock. My experience is that if she is the right amount of tired she goes to sleep very quickly whatever technique. It's a battle when she is not tired or has napped too late. Is it worth looking at her naps?

She’s still very young -changing the routine might be helpful .

Swaddling and dummy worked. It might be worth trying again.

I put them down awake right from the start so they were used to it.

ds would not continue to suckle on boob once he was full, so I never ever fed to sleep. He like to be cuddled though and for a while sucked on my finger and then I gave him a dummy.

But he often did the evening cluster feeding where he fed every 30 minutes all evening.
I read about doing a top up feed. I had LOADS of milk in the morning, so I pumped on one boob while feeding on the other and got a couple of ozs. Then when he fed at about 7/8 pm, after he had fed I offered him the bottle. He woudl take it and then wouldn't cluster feed all evening. He would sleep and then wake to feed at 10/11 and then sleep until 6 am.

She’s managed 2/3 naps today in her cot (not fed to sleep) so I know she can do it! I’m fairly confident her naps are as they should be @keha - we use the huckleberry app although she does tend to need slightly longer wake windows than the app recommends otherwise it just becomes a battle. They are often short but I remember with my son that they improved around 6 months so I’m not too worried about that.

@happymummy12345 @DarcyLewis She’s not picked up immediately if she fusses. We use white noise, and she has a comforter. I’m quite happy to let her whinge for a while and will just keep shushing her until she settles but if she starts becoming hysterical there is no calming her without a boob!

This evening went as follows -
17.30 bath with DS
18.00 feed whilst we read a bedtime story
18.30 put down in cot for last nap (awake)
18.35 asleep
19.15 awake
19.20 feed and play downstairs
20.10 started to get really fussy and tired

20.15 nappy, PJs, sleeping bag
20.20-21.20 breastfeeding!! Fell asleep on breast but I woke her up to transfer to cot. She settled immediately.
22.05 little fuss between sleep cycles, needed a bit of shushing (this usually happens after her first sleep cycle of the night)
She’ll be down for the night now, waking at some point between 5 and 8 for a feed, and then will probably sleep until 9ish. I can’t work out how to shift her body clock to go to bed earlier.

Some good suggestions here. Definitely make sure bedtime routine is good. Otherwise, all I can say is that it does get easier! Mine is 10mo and so easy now. Nightmare at 5mo and very similar to your experience. I felt like I spent ages every day just walking round getting ds to sleep.

Could be sleep regression, growth spurt or teething at 5mo, so do what you can to make sure she is comfortable, give her lots of hugs. Maybe have OH take over for a bit.

How are you coping? Are you getting enough rest with two?

Just crossed posts! Your routine sounds good. Maybe just persevere. She’ll get there x

Yep dummy, we introduced it at about 2 weeks.

I also never fed to sleep so dd never got used to it.

I bf my 15 mth old too. After a feed I offen hold him close and tell him stories until he falls asleep.

If I can tell she needs a nap in the day but she's fighting sleep I walk around with her for 10-20 mins, usually gets her to drift off. Failing that I let her suck my knuckle (she spits a dummy out) for a few mins.

At night she sometimes goes straight down after supper / night feed but usually it takes 5-10 mins of gentle bouncing and shushing. If after 20 mins she's still awake I just put her down anyway and make things dark and quiet, and she'll fall asleep by herself after a little while.

She's 4 mo, corrected to 2.5 mo.

You had a baby and baby needs you morning or night. Sadly child free nights just may not be a thing for a while. It helps to adjust one's expectations