Those of you who fed to sleep / co-slept .....

[mardarse]

.....did you do anything to stop this yourselves or did your DC eventually sort it out for themselves?

DS is 6 months and BF, this meant a night feed about 5am. I've only just twigged that he hasn't been waking up hungry for some time but his body clock is set to this time so he'll wake up and start the day. Sometimes this is at 4am, sometimes we'll get a lie-in until 5 or 5:30 and nothing, nothing will get him to settle down again apart from a BF when he'll barely take any milk but will just use me as a dummy to get himself back off.

We've tried to bring him into bed with us, sometimes he'll settle after a lengthy chat, sometimes he won't. I'm trying to be relaxed about it and think it will sort itself out in time - he's still so little but a little voice keeps nagging at me that it will only get harder to sort out the longer we leave it and I am going back to work in July so will need sleep to be able to function.

Any experiences of this most welcome.

I'm a co-sleeping / feed babies on demand kinda parent. With ds1 I stopped bf during night when he was one and a bit. He still came into bed with us when he woke but I'd sing to him or stroke his back to get him back to sleep. At about 18 months we got him a proper big boys bed which he loved and he's been an excellent sleeper ever since. Can't remember the last time he came in with us. He's 3 now .

Ds2 is a bit more tricky as he's 7 months but can only get to sleep by feeding - having head stroked just annoys him so may have to think of a different strategy for him. He shares our bed but has his own cot on the side which he hardly ever stays in

Thanks Whirl. I'm kind of leaning towards a similar approach to yours and one day we will get there .

Yeah co-sleeping can seem like its been going on for ages when you are in a sleep deprived fug but its a limited opportunity in the greater scheme of things. Last time Ds1 shared our bed (must be over 6 months ago now) he asked to go back to his room as my snoring woke him up !