Trying to stop feeding to sleep- baby waking up more!

[Latinatta]

Having read Pantley and everyone else who advises putting baby down drowsy but awake to teach them to get themselves back to sleep, I've been trying this with my 5mo DD. It's working quite well at night- she lies awake (swaddled in a Sleepyhead) for 15-20 mins and is calm, then falls asleep at 1830-1900ish, after bath/wash, song and cuddles. When I feed her to sleep she can sleep until anything from 0100 to 0300, but the few times she has put herself to sleep she wakes up within the hour, and seems to have an overall much more disturbed night. At which point I give up and feed her to sleep!

Can anyone shed any light on why this is happening?! Anyone had the same thing?!

We had this with both ours at exactly the same age. They could settle themselves for naps in the day and at bedtime but never in the middle of the night for some bizarre reason. We took the easy option and carried on feeding to sleep in the middle of the night and they both cut down on the frequency of night feeds and eventually stopped altogether of their own accord. The younger has just stopped pretty much! Some advice I read was to offer water instead (once they are a bit older) but this never worked for us.

She's not being taught to feel comforted, content and happy to go to sleep on her own because at some point you "give up and feed her to sleep".

So it's like she will make-do with going down awake. She will tolerate it if she absolutely must. But really she is just waiting for you to do it properly (in her mind), so she can feed to sleep and feel contented and comforted enough for a deep sleep.

Consistency is key, if you want to promote independant sleeping.

Help her feel content and comforted when not being fed to sleep. So maybe stay with her until she is fully asleep, firm hand on chest for reassurance, pat and shush if needed. Then be consistant so she learns that the comfort comes when she goes to sleep in her cot.

It is often the case that the middle of the night extra comfort is needed. It's because she's not as exhausted as she was at bedtime. So it may mean ypu have to work harder to help her feel comforted in the cot - more reassurance, longer firm hand on chest/back, more shushing, more patting and so on.

Same here! Long story short I used to feed to sleep too and DD would sleep from 7-1am ish then until 6am ish. I needed to stop feeding to sleep in view of returning to work and not always home at bedtime, so some very gentle sleep training later and DD will now fall asleep independently, quite happily for naps and bedtime, swaddled in sleepyhead WITH DUMMY.
However, same issue- she now wakes 2-3hourly and will not settle back with dummy, cuddle, shush/pat etc...it has to be boob! This is an issue for us as when I'm wrking DH puts baby to bed at 7pm, no probs, but she wakes at 9pm screaming and I'm not home until 10pm 😭
Obviously I expect to still feed an EBF baby through the night at 5.5months...but not 2hourly?...surely?
What do people think? Is she genuinely hungry or just comfort feeding? It's hard to know what to do for the best but sleeping in 1.5hour blocks is very tiring with toddler to look after and I'm stressed at work come 9pm as I know she is at home hysterical 😕