Breastfeeding and bedtime

[22questions06]

Hi All,
I would love to ask for advice or maybe you could share you experience.
My little one is 4 months and 1 week. She’s breastfeeding, but also takes bottles fine.
She’s a good sleeper, she started to connect sleep cycles so her first nap is now usually 1.5h-2h, then has another 3-4 naps during the day depending how tired she is. She can fall asleep independently, we follow sleep, eat, play routine during the day. At night she sleeps 8-10h straight, then feed around 4am (breastfed) and sleep again 2-3h.
My goal is to bottle feed her in the afternoons + bedtime. Now, bedtime is where I struggle.
I tried giving her just bottle, worked for 5 days, 6th day she demanded breast and started crying. Then I tried separating feeding from sleep completely and fed her downstairs in the living room, then took her for bedtime routine (30min), worked for 5 days, although nighttime sleep started to suffer (day by day increasingly harder for her to settle for sleep), and 6th day she started crying and again, wanted breast for comfort. I caved in, she suckled for 2 minutes and calmed down, I could place her in the cot still awake but drowsy and she would fall asleep.

Now, my question is how do I stop breastfeeding for comfort at bedtime? I don’t want to hear her cry, it seems like it gets worse with every day, shushing and patting worked at first but it feels like she catches on to what I’m doing and is having none of it once she figures it out!

Did you have similar problem? Did you little one grow out of it? How did you manage to just give bottle at bedtime if you were breastfeeding, what age was your little one and did you manage it without crying?
I really want it to be a gentle transition, hence stating now, so by the time she’s 6-7 months, we have a routine in place which doesn’t involve breastfeeding for comfort to sleep.

Please help - any advice from fellow mums would be amazing!!

I should add she does not take a dummy! She did for the first couple of months then completely rejected it (tried 4 different brands and sizes and shapes).

*and I meant 2-3 naps after the first one, so max 4 during the day!

Why do you not want her breastfeeding to sleep?

If it because you think she shouldn’t, then don’t worry about it. Breastfeeding to sleep is completely natural. You only have to stop doing it if it’s no longer working for you. I still breastfeed my toddler to sleep (and when he wakes in the night) unless I’m out/away for work, then DH or the babysitter do… whatever it is they do. I’m not actually sure 😂. It works though, he sleeps just fine without me! Hasn’t needed me for bedtime since he was about 6 months old.

If it’s basically any other reason (and “I don’t want to” is a valid reason!), then hopefully someone will come along with advice as mine was a total bottle refuser - but I know plenty of breastfed babies who went onto bottles with no problems! I’m sure mine would have if I’d tried more than twice before shrugging and giving up.

Are you trying to stop breastfeeding? If you are, you just have to persevere and if you have a partner around, have your partner do the bottles. It will be upsetting, but she will get used to it eventually.

If you are not trying to stop breastfeeding, just feed her. The great thing about breastfeeding is its so much easier than bottle feeding. And it works really effectively to settle them. All of mine were always fed to sleep (both my breastfed and bottle fed ones) and it was fine. I don't think there is any reason to worry about using the breast for comfort to sleep. That's the whole point! Don't buy into the load of rubbish that certain people who like to sell books might try to convince you about sleep routines and not feeding to sleep. People do it because it works and one day when you don't need it anymore, you'll do something different to get them to sleep. In the meantime, do what works so you get them to sleep and you get yourself to sleep.

Like I said, both of mine were always fed to sleep and I think they slept pretty well and it didn't cause any issues. And then when they were a bit older, they just stopped doing it. And we cuddled. Or we read a story. Or did whatever. And it worked and it was pretty stress-free.