4 1/2 months baby wants to stay latched on during naps and bedtime

[Hope54321]

Honestly, I’m exhausted. Nobody else can put baby to sleep so I always feed baby to sleep and he wants to stay latched on. He’s waking so frequently at night (every 30 minutes - hourly) and needs to be fed back to sleep every time. How an earth do I get through this? It’s mainly comfort sucking. I’ve tried a dummy several times, he spits it out. Also, we are now co sleeping although I really didn’t want to.

Keep trying with the dummy, try different brands. I used mam ones for my bf son.

It’s so hard. I’m working on moving away from this with my son.

What is - slowly and tentatively - working for us is
‘Habit stacking’. I’ve spent weeks building up other sleep associations alongside the nursing, so I use white noise and a comforter and I’ve said ‘hush hush hush’ gently as he falls asleep. I’m now gradually stopping the nursing earlier every night and settling him in his cot awake, and using the other associations (the comforter, white noise and hushing) to get him to drop off. He has now started staying asleep for longer as a result.

It has been a slow process requiring endless patience and consistency but it is slowly working.

I used to firmly close my baby's lips - sort of finger under the chin pushing them closed and keeping them shut for a few seconds. Otherwise as soon as I unlatched the baby woke up. Have you tried something like that?

Co sleeping might be the best way to maximise your sleep