Self settling/feed to aleep

[jadeyty]

My little boy is 4 months old and I feed him to sleep for pretty much all naps and during the night (he only wakes 2 times now for booby milk). He does however sometimes wake and I can tell he's not really hungry and he goes back to sleep when I reach over and let him hold my finger. He also slightly wakes after I put him in his cot after a feed (eyes go wide but then drifts off).

My question is does this sound like he's learning to self settle? Am I ok to keep doing what I'm doing as I'm trying to promote self settling but feeding to sleep is just so quick and convenient. Or should I be actively trying to wake him up before I put him down so he's drowsy but awake.

I basically want to promote self settleing gently so in the long term he can sleep through and not have strong sleep associations.

You'll get varied responses to this. I personally think self settling is developmental and children get their on their own. Some at a few weeks old and some at a couple of years old. Sounds like what you're doing is great x

He does however sometimes wake and I can tell he's not really hungry and he goes back to sleep when I reach over and let him hold my finger

That's a great thing to do to promote independant sleep, having a go at seeing if you can settle baby without feeding first.

I used a dummy because it's a really great tool for independant sleep long term, but if you prefer not that's fine. I wouldn't ever have baby crying for even a moment. But would always give 5 or 10 minutes to settling with a dummy reinserts and hand on chest, and only feed of that didn't settle baby back to sleep. As time goes on baby should need feeding less and less frequently to get back to sleep.

I honk you're doing great. I fed to sleep for 12 months - mostly because it was easy.