12 month old only feeds to sleep - help!

[dreamerkr]

Hey guys! My 12 month old only nurses to sleep, or he falls asleep in his car seat while we are driving. He feeds to sleep but recently, he’s started biting me quite hard, especially at the end of a feed. It’s so painful and he’s left teeth marks too and twice, he’s made me bleed. I don’t want to stop breastfeeding just yet as I don’t think DS is ready to stop either but I don’t know what to do now. Sometimes he finishes his feed but he’s still awake, and then he won’t fall asleep any other way so me and DH have to take him out in the car at night so that he falls asleep. This always works but I really don’t want him to get the habit of only falling asleep in the car. When we bring him home and I put him into bed he does usually wake up, but he falls back asleep quickly as he’s half asleep at that point. Please guys give any advice on how I can make him sleep without only feeding him to sleep or taking him out in the car? I don’t want to make him cry it out. Any other way to make him sleep without feeding to sleep, that doesn’t involve crying? He’s super super attached to me and whenever I pick him up, he wants to feed. I never get a good night’s sleep this way because these days as he’s teething molars, he wakes up several times at night and will only go back to sleep while nursing. Otherwise he will stay awake. Please help guys 🥺

A few days ago, he bit me so hard while feeding that I was bleeding and I couldn’t feed any longer for the next few hours. He cried so much and didn’t sleep at all. It was 10:30pm when we took him out in the car and he ended up falling asleep 15 mins later.

This sounds very similar to my experience. Breastfeeding teething babies is hard!! My son was similar. He would fall asleep in the car or nursing. We managed to train him to fall asleep at night being rocked in my arms (mimicking the motion of being in a car). At 12 months we also trained him to have his afternoon nap immediately after his lunch. This involved putting him in his cot in his room and leaving him to fall asleep. He cried the first few days but it worked. We then knew he could self soothe and begin to do that at night, too. I stopped breastfeeding entirely at almost 13 months as I was 6 months pregnant and my nipples were SORE! The only answer IMO is to get him to self soothe or find another way to soothe him to sleep.

DS cosleeps with me so I don’t even know how to do this 🥺 he won’t sleep in his cot, at all. When I’m not near him he wakes up straight away 😫