feeding to sleep - what to do now

[Katekoom]

Hi
Dd has been feeding to sleep since day 1. I have started introducing patting and rocking her crib which for daytime naps works maybe 80% of the time and i use it 50-60% of the time. At other times she might sleep on me or in car/pram.

At night is a different story, she feeds to sleep at bedtime which can take an hour sometimes much longer and i find it really hard to get her to self settle with the pat and rock. Maybe because I'm paranoid about getting her to sleep of an evening whereas in the daytime I'm a bit more relaxed.

She always crys a bit when i use the pat and rock but i just ignore and she goes off just fine.

I think I've answered my own question in that i should try to put her down awake more often at night. It just makes me so anxious. I just want her to go to f-ing sleep!!

Is the patting thing a reliable sleep cue? I want to be able to say goodnight and get my butt back down stairs for a brew and some time with my husband - how does that work with the patting? Do you just pat less and less? It takes me approx 30 mins at the moment.

You don't mention how old your DD is?

What I'd recommend as a reliable replacement for feeding to sleep would be a dummy. Great loco nipple to suck on when sleepy to allow for drifting off to sleep without any crying and in the manner your baby appears to like (sucking, which is what most babies like best to get to sleep).

That ^ would all be fine if your DD is little, but not much help if she is a year old, for example. Hence me asking how old she is.

I'm having the exact same issue with my DD who is 15 weeks old and point blank refuses to take a dummy :( she is EBF and I'm seriously considering putting her onto bottles for pre bedtime feeds as she seems to just want to boob it constantly from about 7-10 but will go upto 4 hrs during the day. I'm also a bit more paranoid of her crying to much at night coz it then wakes up my 2 yr old DS starting to feel like a hermit as getting no time to myself of a night.

she seems to just want to boob it constantly from about 7-10 but will go upto 4 hrs during the day

Evening cluster feeding is pretty normal practice for breastfed babies. She will grow out of it. In the mean time, just park yourself on the sofa with baby attached to book constantly and don't stress about it.

Regarding dummy - took me 7 weeks of daily constant perseverance to get DD to accept hers and not spit it out or gag on it. She started sleeping 11pm-7am (exclusively breastfed) with no feed from the very first night she accepted the dummy for comfort sucking.

Definitely, definitely worth the effort of persevering.

... baby attached to book boob constantly...

Book?! Early reading aside...

Isn't using a dummy a bit counter productive, because she'll eventually have to be weaned off that too?

I think I'm just going to feed until sleepy and then try to settle her whilst working on self soothing with daytime naps.

She's 9 almost 10 weeks.

Nope. Don't believe all the NCT claptrap

Mine have all got to an age when the have the emotional brain development to self sooth (which has been shown to be preschool age) and then with a bit of bribery given up the dummy by choice without any tears or problems at all.

Problems come when you expect a child to self sooth before they are emotionally capable of doing that. Doesn't really matter what method you are weaning off, if you expect self soothing too soon the result would be the same nightmare. If you wait until the child is ready, it's no problem whatsoever.