Am I doing the right thing: stopping feeding to sleep?

[tealandteal]

I would appreciate any advice from someone who has stopped feeding to sleep as I am worried I may regret it! DS is 7 months now and previously has either fed to sleep or rocked/jigged to sleep. He is getting heavy and so we decided not to continue rocking. I also feel that feeding to sleep may be contributing to his very regular wakeups - sometimes every hour. So I have been following the pull off method. I think it is called Pantley pull off.

Now roughly 50% of the time he will go to sleep in his cot for daytime naps with a hand on his chest and I sing to him. The other 50% I sit with him and give him a cuddle while singing and put him in his cot asleep. I hope to increase the amount of times he goes to sleep in his cot.

BUT he still feeds to sleep for bedtime and I am worried about loosing a reliable, calm and quiet way to get him to sleep. Am I doing the right thing?

Sorry that was very long!

He's still very little and is growing a lot and developing a lot! Why do you want to give up? Is it that you've had enough of feeding? Or you're worried that you're "creating a rod"? Or something else?

FWIW. There is no rod. Your baby will sleep when they're ready. If he's waking up it's for a reason. If he's hungry, feed him. Is he cold? Too hot? Try giving him some water in a sippy cup if you're thinking he's waking up but not hungry. If he's thirsty then he'll drink the water. If not, and he's hungry he will shout for milk.

My daughter is 17 months and still has a bottle of milk at bedtime. Sometimes she wakes in the night, sometimes she doesn't. They're only little for such a small period of time. The best advice I can give is to accept it is what it is and go with it. The easier you make it on yourself the easier it will be.

You cannot spoil or break a baby

I have no problem at all with feeding him, if he is hungry. Or even every hour once every so often for a growth spurt. But every hour until around 2 every night is so hard and I guess I was hoping for more sleep!

His room is a good temp and he always feels a good temp as well when I touch the back of his neck. He is currently dosed with calpol and with snuffle babe balm to hopefully have a more restful night.