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Transitioning away from feeding to sleep

1 reply

Gerbera55 · 16/04/2026 19:30

Bottle fed 8mo has only ever fed to sleep for
naps/night wakes/night time sleep apart from for a few weeks before teething started at 3.5 months when he would fall asleep being rocked. We’ve managed to get to the point of only 1/2 night wakes now, one of which he tends to go back down with a cuddle, the other is a feed, so we’ve decided to take the opportunity to move away from feeding to sleep to eventually self-settling. I’m focusing on night time at the minute and naps when we’ve got that cracked - is that a good idea?

For 2 nights, we’ve fed him downstairs, read a story, then done teeth and into sleeping bag in his room. He’s then been rocked and has cried for 10 minutes each time before falling asleep. I suppose I’m wondering what the next steps would be and what people’s experiences of a similar transition have been?

We are still feeding in the night at the minute if it has been a while since his last feed - for example we fed at 3:30am when he woke after a 7:45pm bedtime. Is this a good idea or could it cause confusion?

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
mindutopia · 17/04/2026 22:22

Honestly, does he go to sleep when you feed him? If so, I wouldn’t change something that’s working. Sleep definitely often gets worse not better towards 1 year. I wouldn’t do all this getting ready, milk downstairs thing. Get him ready in his room where it’s nice and dark and familiar. Feed him. If he falls asleep, great, put him to bed.

They do stop falling asleep during a feed eventually and then you cuddle them to sleep or put them down and do something different. I would not be at all concerned about trying to break a habit. It’s a tool that’s working. I’d use it. When it stops working, then you figure out the next thing to try. I’d be making the most of getting some sleep now for when it gets trickier in the month ahead, especially when pulling up, crawling, walking. That is a whole new bedtime experience and you will wish you could just feed him to sleep when those months come, so I wouldn’t stress about it now.

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