How did you get your feed-to-sleep baby to stop and self-settle in the cot?

[missrose]

Just wanted to hear some success stories really - how did you teach your baby to fall asleep on their own, in their cot? Is this sleep-training? I'm not one for CC.

DD is 7mo and I've just realised that if we're at home she feeds to sleep, both for naps and in the night. I've read NCSS and am trying to take her off the breast before she falls asleep and get her to settle in her cot but she's putting up quite a fight! We've been doing it for a week but don't really seem to be getting anywhere. I'm trying to be consistent but there are times when I'm just too tired (she feeds between 1 and 3 times a night as well as getting up for the day at 5am) or she's teething and I want to be able to comfort her.

I'm not too worried about getting this sorted immediately as I have a couple of months before I return to work but I did think of starting something now, gently. To be honest, I think I am getting secretly quite stressed about it and really want to know that there will be a point when I put her down and she'll drift off to sleep. Please tell me this will be possible at some point before she becomes an adult!

Re-animating again in the hope that some other moms out there have some advice😊.

My LO is 27 weeks and is fed and rocked to sleep for all sleeps

She started crawling a few weeks ago and is now very mobile during the night. We co-sleep and she does her naps in our bed so we are worried safety wise and want to be able to put her in a cot to sleep. The problem is she refuses to fall asleep by any other means than the breast and, or rocking.

She can selfsettle - i have seen her do it! She also falls asleep on the go sometimes and regularly in the car. The problem is she fights tooth and nail (or would do if she had any teeth ) as soon as I try to put her down vvv drowsy, but awake. So I end up feeding her to sleep because she would scream and yell otherwise and im not a fan of CC or CIO.

Can any of you lovely moms share tips of how you managed to get your bf babies to sleep without the boob. xx

MomtoOneMarvelousBubba - you would be better starting a new thread on the sleep board.

OP, I still bf my 22mo ds to sleep at night and for naps (unless we're out and he's in the pushchair) but goes to sleep just fine when I'm not there ie DM babysits. Please don't panic yet. Do what works for you now and baby will work it out for themselves when you're not there. . I don't think you can teach a baby to self settle. Not unless you do some form of sleep training/cc. Which imo 7mo is way too young and it doesn't work for every baby.

You don't have to 'teach' it, they do all learn to sleep without feeding to sleep when they are ready. Some people don't want to wait though (which is fine) so will find methods of getting baby to sleep without feeding but it might be hard work (depending on baby and age you do it).

If you are happy to keep feeding yo sleep then don't worry, you're not creating 'bad habits' or anything.

Agree with helenc19 if feeding to sleep is working for now, don't make life hard for yourself, especially in the middle of the night! Feed lying down and all get more sleep.

If it stops working or you no longer want to feed to sleep in the future then you can change it then but don't worry about changing something that's working because it might be a problem in the future.

OP's child will be 7 years old now.

😂hopefully she's learned to self settle!

Thank you all im a first timer so constantly second guessing myself!