How did you transition from BF’ing to not for sleep

[Maloneyb]

My DS is fed to sleep for bedtime. How do I stop feeding to sleep and transition to something else?
it’s such a strong sleep association for him and we do need to stop as I’m pregnant again!

he will go to sleep with others in the day if they walk him.. just in their arms.. walking.
but at night he will ONLY go to sleep with me.

I’ve tried “stacking”. Doesn’t seem to help.

any tried and tested success stories?

Just feed him then put him in his cot.

He'll soon fall asleep. I never fed mine to sleep. They need to learn to fall asleep on their own.

You won't be able to do it once the new baby arrives, so break the habit now.

There's plenty of advice in the Ferber sleep training book.

How pregnant are you? When I was pregnant with DS my milk dried up and although some babies with dry nurse DD didn't so it naturally stopped after my first trimester. Luckily she wasn't to upset about it. I did know a few people who tandem nursed, I wasn't up for that though.

You could BF, then read then put in cot (break up the routine). Or else swap out for water or milk in a supply cup

I tandem feed and feeding to sleep is so much quicker than anything else. You don't need to stop just because you're pregnant. You can feed the baby to sleep whilst your partner does stories with eldest and some nights eldest will be asleep already if you go in to offer milk, other nights will want cuddles with you anyway so won't just go to sleep because you're with the baby. My toddler will stay awake regardless of whether they want milk or not at bedtime just because they like me putting them to bed.

Tandem feeding is great for supply. Loads of positives.

Your relationship with your eldest is about to be knocked sideways. So if you have no intention of tandem feeding take the natural opportunity of your second trimester supply dip to stop.

I did it after one year old. I said "bedtime milk is all done but you can have milk in the morning", and offered him a sippy cup of water.

He breastfed first thing in the morning for a while then gradually stopped of his own accord.

My daughter fed to sleep, and I stopped by first of all letting her have a feed and then having the story. She wanted another feed after but I was very firm. I sat with her until she was asleep at first, but it wasn't long before she told me I could go! It took a few days to break the feed-to-sleep habit but once we broke the link we eventually cut out bedtime feeds altogether and continued for sometime with one first thing in the morning.

One morning she forgot because of something exciting happening that day, the next few days I distracted her or was up before she came in, and it all felt very natural. I did find the lack of support/advice around stopping BFing a toddler frustrating, but it helped that I could have a conversation and explain we were stopping/changing rather than just stopping.

How old is he? Can he understand? I put a plaster on his favourite breast and told him I was hurt. So he fed from less favourite one for a few days. Then I put a plaster on the 2nd breast and both were hurt (i had asked him what wull hapoeb if the other hurts as well(. He was 2.

21 weeks. Milk supply has lessened but definitely not dried up yet!

Thank you. Super helpful

He’s 1.5
understands and will accept in the day there’s no breastmilk but just not in the night

Well I successfully did it... with sleep training. It was basically a controlled crying method where I left him for short periods that slowly increased in length. Between each period I would go in and feed to soothe, but not let him fall asleep. It was brutal on both of us, but ever since he's been fantastic at going to bed. My son was 6 months though; might be a different story on a toddler.

I followed the Little Ones method

Good luck and congratulations on your pregnancy!

How is his language?

My eldest 3 were all 3-6 months older than that when he as considering ending feeding to sleep. We read stories about it so they would understand the process - Mumma-s milk is all gone, Sally weans from night nursing, nursies when the sun shines.... I'm sure it helped helped a lot, no tears at all with two out of 3, and not many with the third. I've never been a fan of sleep training, it's just not for me so I didn't want to go down that route.

Same with mine, it didn’t dry up but something changed . She was only 4 months old when I must have fallen pregnant and at that point i didn’t know I was. Couldn’t figure it out. She’d gone from exclusively breast feeding practically all day long to being fussy. We limped on for and other 6 months then she refused it point blank.