Stopping feeding to sleep

[beijingaling]

DD is 10w and I'm done with feeding to sleep. I hate it with a passion. She wont reliably take a dummy so that's out.

Whats the best way to stop? Cold turkey? ATM if she doesnt feed to complete sleep she stays awake... for hours. Yesterday she was awake for 12 hours all up.

Why do you hate it with a passion? She's still so little, at that age i would say it's still fairly normal and unavoidable to a point. DS is 17 weeks and i still feed to sleep when he's having an unsettled patch, growth spurt, illness etc. Sometimes it's easier nd i believe BFing is about a lot more than supplying food. That said, i do know my DS is capable of self settling and will always go back to self settling afterwards. But at that age i did anything and everything to get him to sleep, wherever or whenever he needed to.

Cold turkey will do nothing more than stress you and your DD out, not fair on either of you so you'll need to find another way to get her to sleep. I'm assuming (perhaps wrongly) you've tried watching for her tired cues and putting her in her moses basket/ carry cot to try to teach her to self settle? This does take time and patience. Will she sleep in a sling, being held, rocked, driven or anything, or will literally nothing else work? White noise, music etc - you'll find loads of other suggestions on here.

Good luck.

My 8 month old still feeds to sleep and resists change with a passion. At the moment, DH is walking around cradling him until he drops off which isn't much better, but gives me a break and is getting him in the habit of something different.

I sound like a right pushover..... both dd's were self settling in their cot by 6 weeks no probs. Just this little blighter that has me wrapped around his little finger!

Agh sorry, will reply later, DD very unhappy tonight!

Sorry for the delay in replying. It's been a horrid few days.

The reason I dislike feeding to sleep is that it can take an hour or two for her to fall asleep. She isn't feeding but the second I take her off my boob she is wide awake. I can rarely get her from boob to cot without waking her unless she is completely out of it. This means I am sitting at home unable to leave the house for hours and hours of the day waiting for her to drop off so I can put her down. On top of this I really hate the actual feeling of comfort sucking. It makes me toes curl and all I can think is "if I just get to 3 months then she can go to formula and I don't have to do this any more." I really want to bf her for at least 6 months and feel horribly guilty that all I want to do is stop bfing due to the comfort sucking.

I'm swaddling, using white noise, rocking her to sleep, putting her in a dark room, waiting for tired signs, putting her down after an hour after waking whether seeing signs or not.Nothing has worked.

All that happens is she lies there, after 30 odd minutes she starts to burble so i pat her gently without her seeing me. She gets more distressed so I try PU/PD. About 2 hours after her last feed she starts to scream and only a feed calms her. She is then asleep about 2 minutes after being put on my breast. I try to keep her awake and feeding for a bit then if I let her drop off the minute I delatch her she wakes up and roots for my breast. Even if she doesntfall asleep until after a full feed the same waking on bein unlatched thing happens.

This is causing me to dislike bfing (which I enjoy when she is feeding but not when she is comfort sucking).

Thoughts?

Sorry... I should add that she will fall asleep in the pram on a walk if shes not already too tired.

Sorry to hear you are finding this stressful. I know what you mean but on the other hand am so grateful something gets our ds to sleep.

When she is asleep but waking up rooting, try pressing up under her chin gently so her mouth closes. Sometimes it fools them!

And get an ipod or mp3. I listen to a lot of podcasts as I get so bored otherwise, takes your mind off the sucking feeling. I have woken ds by laughing though!