6 month old will only get to sleep while latched on.

[Notyetthere]

I go back to work towards end of January. Dh will be taking over from me for 6 months on shared parental leave.

At the moment DD will only go to sleep or nap while nursing. I have never trained her to fall asleep any other way and now appreciate that I created a sleep association where it involves just me and nobody will settle her.

Dh has tried rocking her to sleep or a bottle to no avail. She won't take a dummy either.

I didn't want to try any of the cry it out methods as the feeding to sleep worked but now we need to find other ways to get her to sleep without me being involved.

I would still like to breastfeed in the mornings, evenings and nights but my worry is after all of the hard work to dissociate DD from breast during the day she might regress during the night and I might be too weak and give in. I feel like I might have to wean her off the breast so that I don't confuse her. But then I'm sure others where baby goes to nursery must be able to carry on breastfeeding during evenings and nights.

She will sleep in the pram if out and about so dh plans to try doing that tomorrow when I will be for the first time leave them together all day to pick up my family for Christmas and also get my hair done. I will be gone for atleast 12hrs so it will a test for both of us to see what eventually works for dh to get DD to sleep. I expect crying for a while when she is tired and needs to nap as she will be wondering why I'm not there to help her to sleep.

Can you please share your experiences on how you managed to get your dc to be able to sleep by other people other than yourself? I don't even know where to start.

Sorry about the lack of paragraphs, I did use them but something is not right with the android app.

My baby is 10 months old and I still bf to sleep in the middle of the night. For naps and the first putting down of the night, I feed to drowsy. My husband can put her down now, if she's not hungry.

If you don't want any crying at all, it takes time. The end point (which we haven't got to yet), is you put your baby down and she puts herself to sleep. There are loads of steps in between that point and her only sleeping while latched on.

I read the No Cry Sleep Solution by Pantley, and in summary, what I do is when the baby switches from drinking to that flutter suck stuff, I break the latch. If she tries to latch back on, I let her. Wait about 10 seconds. Break the latch. And over and over until she's so drowsy that she doesn't try to latch back on. After a couple of weeks of that, she often would break the latch herself and fall asleep in my arms/next to me in bed.

One thing you can try is letting her fall asleep in all the other ways for naps for a while: carrier/sling naps, pram naps, car naps, bouncy chair naps. Then she will know she can fall asleep without the milk. This helps her out a lot.

I read Solve your child's sleep problems by Ferber and while his methods are not my cup of tea he said something that clicked with me. When your baby cries because you won't let her do something dangerous in the day, you tolerate that because it's for the greater good. So, I tolerate a little crying. Before, I'd try to put her down to sleep drowsy and she'd go ballistic, so I'd end up having to feed her to sleep just so I could have my arms back... and that would mean she'd wake up after one sleep cycle and be confused I wasn't there.
After reading Ferber, when she protested being put down drowsy, I would just hold her from trying to stand up (she learned to stand up around about the time I was ready to let her sleep in her cot by herself, FML). She protests for about five seconds and then she just stops! and falls asleep by herself! She stays asleep too because she doesn't feel disoriented during the little slight wake up times. It's like magic and I feel a bit sheepish that I didn't try it months ago.

So, I know where you're coming from with not wanting them to cry but a little bit of crying is probably inevitable and not something to be afraid of.

Good luck!

Hi

I've recently managed to stop BFing my DD to sleep by using pick up put down. Well, DH does it.

We changed her routine to BF, bath and then bed. First night it took45 min, now it takes only a few or she goes down straight away with no protest. We are just about to start with daytime nap. Worth considering if you're looking for a gentle technique.

Im trying to get my 7 month old to lose her nipple dependancy as everytime she stirs in the night she becomes frantic looking for it rather than settling off back to sleep. She had reflux for her first 5 months so has never slept at all well and also used boob for comfort. The hv suggested controlled crying...ive tried it 5 nights now and she fights it so hard...cried 4+ hours at once last night. Im on my own and am utterly exhausted and also feel its too much for her distress wise. Any advise? I am desperate:( x

Sounds terrible @Ali239, have you tried pick up put down?

Do you have anyone who can stay over with you at least one evening?

@glasshalfsomething. Thankyou. Im going to try pick up put down tonight . I initially though that technique might make it worse as she d just get comforted and then if take it away from her again, but now im hopeful regular conforting might keep her calm enough to eventually nod off. I will ask my mum if she ll help out a few nights at least while i trial this . I cant do the comforting night after night on my own and function in the day xx