Resettling at night...without the BOOB!

[Cbell]

I have so many bedtime questions. Everything is up in the air and I am dammed sure I am to blame for the current chaos...well me and the sleep pixies.

Anyway I'm going to limit my rant and just ask the question 'How do you settle a baby back to sleep during the night without breastfeeding?'

My DD is 4 months old and BF. She is usually BF to sleep, I didn't meant for this to happen but hay-hum. She used to sleep in a moses basket but has increasingly been making inroads into our bed and sleeping with us from around 1am. When she wakes during the night, I wake. The slightest murmur from her and I offer her my boob, she suckles for a few minutes then back to sleep.

Her sleeping pattern is crazy at the moment. Waking about every two hours. Maybe it's the 4 months SR but it might also be that I am failing to give her the opportunity to learn to sooth herself.

Parenting 1.01...getting it wrong. So answers on a postcard please

Do you offer her the boob as soon as she makes a noise because you don't want anyone else in the house to wake up, or to settle her immediately? If it is the latter I would recommend leaving her for a bit and pretending to sleep yourself. As long as she doesn't cry she's fine - they can make such a lot of noise fussing but it doesn't mean she needs immediate attention!

Have you come across the No Cry Sleep Solution? If not then it's got some ideas about how to gradually break the BF to sleep thing (very gradually, we started it months ago and DD still BFs to sleep sometimes but progress has definitely been made) - one of the key suggestions is the Pantley Pull Off, where you try and unlatch her before she falls asleep but when she's stopped "actively" feeding IYSWIM; if she startles and cries you let her latch back on and try again in a minute or so until she lets go and falls asleep. The idea is that eventually they get used to falling asleep without a nipple in their mouth.

The book also makes various suggestions as to how to gradually work up to putting the baby down awake and letting her fall asleep on her own (basically by gradually reducing your involvement from feeding to rocking to patting to shushing to just saying goodnight!), but we haven't got very far with that yet .

Will be watching this thread with interest as DD2 is only 4 weeks old but already needs boob to sleep (and as soon as she falls off the boob or I unlatch her she wakes up!)

Like Cbell, it just happened - for the first week she would go to sleep anywhere (jaundice may be the reason) and then suddenly it was boob or nothing.

I have tried swaddling/white noise and dummy - worked brilliantly with DD1 but DD2 doesnt want to know...

I am already panicking as I was planning to stop BF at 4 months when I go back to work - so what do I do then???

Cbell - i would suggest not rushing in at the slightest murmer. If it develops into a cry then go to her. Otherwise, see what she's capable of. I also think it's easier to crack daytime sleep first because you're more awake and have more energy at that time. You'll find that if you can get her to self settle during the day, you'll know she's capable and there's more chance she'll do it at night.

BayeauxT - 4 weeks is tiny. At that age i did absolutely anything and everything just to get DS to sleep. Far too young for them to develop sleep associations. You can't spoil a newborn and certainly at that age it's inevitable that they'll fall asleep at the boob because it's as much about comfort as food and she'll be getting a mighty dose of oxytocin. Don't worry at the moment, but maybe try some light sleep training (nothing heavy) from 8 weeks? Will she sleep in a sling, in the pram, in the car etc?

Thanks matana, she does sleep in pram as long as we keep moving, sling sometimes and as for carseat the HV said not to as it can cause breathing problems if left in there for too long? I am waiting for moby sling thing to arrive and see if that will work...

Babies shouldn't be left in a car seat for more than 2 hours apparently, but i was under the impression it was more to do with long term posture than breathing. Otherwise, how would anyone with a baby ever get to go anywhere more than two hours drive away? They'd be a nervous wreck wondering if their baby was going to make it!