only goes to sleep on the breast

[Rosa1]

Any advice please about how to break this habit...

My son is just 1 yr old and he has always fallen asleep while feeding before both his nap and bedtime. I can now ...nearly always..put him down in his cot just as he dozes off and sshhh a little so he goes off to sleep.
The question is how do I get him to sleep without breastfeeding him to sleep? I feel that soon I will want to stop BF...mainly to give me a bit of freedom and also some nights I get to the point when I want to shout ok enough sucking!!
He doesnt seem to get to the sleepy stage any other way.... any advice please about changing nap and bedtime routines????

My only advice is not to do cc or even pu/pd unless you feel you can cope with the tears. Have been trying to do it with my dd (9m) and it is heartbreaking and also not working as I can't see it through. I feel guilty, emotional and tbh a complete failure. Sorry, not very helpful am !?!

Perhaps you could have someone with you for a few days (dh, mum?) who could put ds down for you so the teptation isn't there for him? That sort of thing seems to work for the baby whisperer, but then everything seems to work for her...

My only advice is not to do cc or even pu/pd unless you feel you can cope with the tears. Have been trying to do it with my dd (9m) and it is heartbreaking and also not working as I can't see it through. I feel guilty, emotional and tbh a complete failure. Sorry, not very helpful am !?!

Perhaps you could have someone with you for a few days (dh, mum?) who could put ds down for you so the teptation isn't there for him? That sort of thing seems to work for the baby whisperer, but then everything seems to work for her...

Hi there
I had this EXACT problem with my baby until he was about 6 months old. I broke the habit through something I read in a book called the 'no-cry sleep solution' by Elaine Pantley. It didn't seem to take that long to fix and was a very untraumatic way of dealing with the problem for both of us...

Just as feeding has slowed and baby is suckling and not really feeding properly, kind of going to sleep on your breast - break him off. If he routes around, give it back to him and count for 10 or 20 (experiment to find the best intervel) and the break him off. keep doing it and eventually he should accept not falling asleep with it in his mouth. My Son (and another one featured in the book) even sometimes breaks himself off now when he's done. He will wimper a little bit sometimes if he's grumpy but a wimper will be all that it is.

At his bedttime feed, if he doesn't break himself off and he stops feeding properly and is just suckling I break him off. I sit back in the chair next to his cot and he lays lack with me and goes to sleep. I sing a few lullabies but then its just darkness and cuddles that seem to do it. I used to try and put him down when he was sleepy but now I just pop him in his cot and he rolls over onto his tummy to go to sleep. I usually hover around the cot for a moment or two and if he trys to get up, gently rub his back until he goes to sleep again.

This is part of his routine which is...
6.30/7ish bath
Changed for bed
Into nursery and feed with small light on
turn light off, afew lullabies and lay him on me in the dark till he gets sleepy.

In the day, he has a little nap routine which envolves reading some books in the chair next toi his bed followed by drawing the curtains and the same, lay him on me on the chair type thing.

I know that isn't the ideal 'baby falling asleep on his own' thing which most books and health visitors and mothers of better sleepers tell us to aspire too, but it works for us and it works for him. He will normally go about 5 hours or more, wake up once and then I bring him into bed with us where apart from the odd grizzle, he'll sleep through till morning.

Basically cuddles in a dark quite room have replaced the suckling.

Good Luck!!!

Bobblehead, we tried c/c and although some people swear by it, we couldn't see it through either. It went against my instincts and it was very, very upsetting for DS, DH & me.

My post (below) is basically the happy compromise we have come to.

I think there is allot of pressure on parents to have 'baby sleeping 12 hours per night every night in own cot in own room'. My son's nighttimes used to make us feel like complete failures but then we started ignoring health visitors, friends etc etc and followed our instincts and we've been allot happier for it. Infact, some night when we are all there asleep I wonder why we hadn't done it sooner as it feels so peaceful and natural.

A friend of mine with twins, who's done the same with both since they were born, has one that sleeps through and one that wakes up all night.So you've done nothing wrong.

Its only in very recently history that putting a baby to sleep, alone in a cot in his/her own room is the done thing. While some babies will accept that situtation, some babies won't and when you look at the way we as human beings have slept for millions of years - huddled up together in one place (even 70 years ago most sibblings shared beds and parents co-slept with babies) its no wonder that some parents have a fight on their hands when they try to get their babies to 'fit in' with this very modern ideal.

Sorry, rant over! I just think it's so wrong that people like you and me can feel like failures because of this!

Thanks Leonsmum, that has made me feel alot better. Funnily enough I ordered the book you mention yesterday, so here's hoping there's in something useful to me in it. Dd does usually pull her off the breast herself, but as soon as she hits the cot she screams, or sometimes she sleeps a little then wakes up crying. Last night it was evey hour and even dh couldn't keep up with pu/pd. I brought her into bed and we slept fine so this is what I will keep doing. The thing that is frustrating me is that although she always woke every couple of hours for a feed, she always went down great after and same at night. Now she cries as soon as we put her in the cot. I think its separation anxiety and hope maybe if I just ride it out and give her the extra comfort she needs it'll pass. Better than lack of sleep for all of us anyway!

leonsmum thanks for your advice. i did try the Pantley pulloff as she calls it for over a week and it didnt seem to help but i will try again! The hard part is when he is is bed with us from about 5am and every time he stirs he wants the boob and if he doesnt get it or I try to prize him off gently he wakes up completely or i spend the next few hour sleeping with him stuck to me...sorry have to go as ds is climbing all over me!

Hi Rosa, I am exactly in the same boat though my ds is now 15 mo... and I'm about to buy that Eliz Pantley book. I'm under a time pressure to wean him fully as I am taking a trip for 4 days at the end of April when I won't be able to bring baby along.. so he needs to be boob free by then (or a couple of weeks before). I will watch this thread with interest - do report back if you've succeeded as will I. Good luck !!

Just want to add, I do have my guy napping without having a feed first. I just put him in the cot awake and sometimes he crys, othertimes he just turns on his tummy and goes to sleep. So I know he 'can' do it... he just chooses not to at night and wants boob or else !!

I got my ds out of the habit of doing this by feeding him first, then changing his nappy, so that wakes him up a bit. Then I put him down to sleep in his cot so he is going down awake, but just fed with a full tummy.

I was just going to post a similar question when I found this thread. DD (10 months) still mostly sleeps on the breast....apart from morning nap which is being walked in the buggie. We are still co-sleeping and happy about it, so she doesn't have her own bed. We have a large futon matress on the floor to solve the safety issue (now a rapid crawler). We are completely opposed to cc. I have been taking an afternoon nap with her for many months as I was glad of the rest too, but now I'm more time-deprived than sleep-deprived. I try getting up once she's asleep, but she only sleeps about 5-10 mins without me and often won't let go of the breast at all. Have tried Pantley pull-off with occasional success, but mostly it doesn't work for us. Any more benign ideas?

I am happy to report that I've been having great success with following suggestions from the Eliz Pantley book. My ds is now sleeping through the night !!!! (not every night but 2 out of 3 which is FABULOUS, and the nights he wakes, he just wakes once !). It took about 3 rough nights with some crying going on middle of night with him wanting to sleep while latched on but once he got the message, he was not going to be allowed to do this, he quickly stopped.

hi,
just to say I was in the same place as you guys and I'm afraid to say the only solution I found was weaning - my boy is a gannet and he drank regularly throughout the night to the extent where he didn't want to eat food during the day, but because we were keen to breastfeed for as long as possible we perservered trying a multitude of techniques but the simple truth was it was a bit of a case of all or nothing... he wasn't happy with a gradual reduction and couldn't understand why he could have some onetime and not another - so we went cold turkey, and straight on to cowsmilk and hey presto sleeping through the night - even in his own bed for the begining! mind you he'll be two soon and I thought I would go mad if it kept on as it was - but eventually we found something that worked for us and I hope you do too mind you this is only the second week of our new regime so please keep your fingers crossed for us!