For the past two nights I have managed to put my 5-month-old to sleep in his cot and without my boob in his mouth (I suppose it would be hard to do both of these things at the same time...fnar). I decided to start trying this as he was feeding very well and often at night (average 4 wakings, often more) and feeding really badly and hardly at all during the day (seemed distracted). I thought if I broke the milk/sleep association a little it might make feeding more of a daytime thing and so far it has worked fairly well. He went to sleep last night without any fuss in his cot, quarter of an hour after a feed and with a bit of patting. He only woke up at 11pm and 3am for feeds, which was a triumph for us.
My oooonly trouble is that he is still, naturally, desperate desperate to feed himself to sleep during the day. I put him down for a nap earlier when he was sleepy after a feed (without allowing him to sleep on the breast). When he woke up an hour later I thought he was just after a feed and would then play, etc, but he was clearly sucking his way back to sleep again. If I´m wanting him, in the long term, to learn to self-settle, should I be trying to stop this thing happening? Or is it bad to not try to break it, given that we are trying to impliment some kind of night-time routine that does not involve needing to suck to sleep? Is he too young for all this? My main aim was to promote daytime feeding. Am I going to manage that if I'm annoying him by keeping him awake during feeds? My head is in a spin...sorry for the long opener...