Boob naps!

[vlooby]

My little one is 5 months. Awake time about 90-120 mins then naps for about 30-45. We put her down in cot and settle her with dummy and a hand on her tummy.,
Always feed her after waking. Almost every afternoon anytime between 2-5, her feed turns into what I call a boob nap. Starts as a normal feed, then she drifts off continuing to suck and then comes off the breast and sleeps in my arms. At this stage if I try to put her down she pings awake, despite the fact we feed her to sleep at night. If I let her sleep in my arms it can be anything from 90 mins to 3 hours!

Any idea why she does this? It doesn't bother me but obviously would love it if I could put her down.

It's totally natural. Feeding to sleep is a biological norm, it was perfectly designed to get our babies to sleep :) can you feed lying down on a bed? That way when baby is asleep you can sneak off? I do this with a monitor.

Have a look at 'Kellymom' feeding to sleep on Google for info

Hi thanks ladies. Yes agree feeding to sleep is normal, more just wondering why she goes to sleep without feeding, then wakes up after 30 Mins. Feeds and falls asleep again for 2 hours and can't out her down! Maybe it's just a quirk as it only happens in the afternoon randomly.

Will have a look at kellymom later though

My DD used to do the same, i just thought she couldn't get herself back to sleep between cycles and feeding helped it really! At 8 months she still wakes regularly after 30 mins, then falls back to sleep with a cuddle instead of a feed now

I was going to say the same thing as furryelephant. The baby probably hasn't yet learnt to link sleep cycles duing daytime napping and is therefore using feeding / sucking to prolong sleep. By 5 months babies normally need to have at least one long (1 hour+) nap to prevent overtiredness. Very often the longer nap is the lunch time nap (e.g. my 6.5 month old currently naps for 2.5 hours from noon to 2.30pm and I usually end up waking her up).

Re: feeding to sleep - while it works for a lot of people, it is definitely not the only option. I stopped feeding to sleep for naps from very early on and started following the EASY routine. While it was hard work to start with, for me it was clearly worth it.

OP - perhaps, one thing you might want to consider is using the "wake to sleep" technique to extend your DD lunch time nap. I used it with DD (for naps) and while I did not have a clue what I was doing, it actually worked. Here is a link I found useful:

www.mybabysleepguide.com/2009/02/wake-to-sleep.html

That's interesting, thanks @wintertravel1980, as she is waking lots at night too.