Changing from feeding to sleep to sshhhh/pat

[helpwithsleepplease]

Hello, I am hoping to start sleep training my 3 month old. She is currently feeding to sleep and I would like to try shhhh/pat.

We currently go upstairs to the darkened nursery, change nappy, then lie down on the bed for a feed. I was wondering do I still give her a wee feed before trying shhh/pat. Or will this feed just be something I will have to wean her off later? Should I maybe offer her a feed downstairs until she is drowsy and then carrying her upstairs to nursery to begin shh/pat?
( we have tried moses basket downstairs-she refuses)

So my plan of action is:

When she wakes, change nappy, bring downstairs for activity time
Watch for beginning signs of tiredness,
Or
After about 50 mins think about offering a feed downstairs
Then bring her upstairs, dark room, lullaby on, nappy change, hold her quietly on my knee for a cuddle for 5 mins, gentle shhhhhing, lay her down and begin shhh/ pat

If she is really distressed to begin with as she is learning this routine, I will lift her and shhh/pat on the shoulder and then lay down when calm again.
Would I need to give her a dummy if she’s used to sucking for comfort, or am I best not encouraging something else which would need weaned?

Do you think this routine should work, and is here anything else that I should do to help it be successful?
Many thanks

Three months seems quite young to me. Are you breast feeding?

Yes I am, will that make a difference?

Meant to say thank you for your reply, what age would you think I would be best waiting until?

Honestly. My advice. Do nothing yet. The 4 month sleep regression is a tough one, most go through it, then all bets are off.
Just go with the flow for now. 3 months is still really tiny. Enjoy feeding to sleep. It really is lovely and won’t last long in the grand scheme of things.

And I’d wait till at least 6 months for any kind of training etc.

I feed til sleepy downstairs and then go up and ssh pat. My youngest won't take a dummy, you might find yours won't at 3 months. Definitely pick up if she gets distressed but try to put her down again before she's asleep - sometimes if mine isn't asleep with 5-10 minutes I put her back to the breast until drowsy again then start again.

I do disagree a little with the other posters, ime 3 months is the right age to get them settling in the cot, I found it much easier to do at this age than 6 months.

child when you say you go up and shhhh pat do you then stay upstairs?
I kept my children in the same room as me to sleep till 6 months as per SIDS guidelines. That’s another reason why I don’t try anything before 6 months. They were/are still downstairs with us till we go to bed.
Just personal choice though.

No mine all had bedtime and nap time in a different room from 3/4 months. They were full term, breastfed, no smoking household, back sleepers etc so that particular risk was extremely tiny in our circumstances. Similarly I chose to bed share when they were newborn, that is probably a slightly higher risk but still minimal.

Are you doing this for naps and bedtime?
For naps I’m trying to follow a routine for timings where it’s always feed then awake time then sleep so thy firstly may help, eg feed at 7 then nap at 9 so for his morning nap I don’t offer a feed before his nap, I take him upstairs and then do patting with white noise and swaddling.
For bedtime my friend recommended feeding fully, my little boy is 14 months and feeds a lot still at bedtime so I need to know I’ve fed him enough! But she then suggested changing his nappy or something after he has fed if he’d fallen asleep so I do that and then try and get him to sleep. I still do this last bedtime feed in a dark room but I don’t think it’s essential, maybe when he’s older I’ll change it but for now as he’s so little i think he needs the dark to know it’s bedtime.
I think this age is fine to start, I didn’t with my first and have gone through 4 years of bad sleep so i wish I had tried! My second has responded really well to it and everyone is getting more sleep plus it’s all been really gentle. I suppose it’s a case of seeing whether your LO responds to it and if you like the method as well and are happy doing it as ultimately it’s all very personal!

Is there a reason why you want to do this?
If your baby is falling asleep when feeding so not getting enough milk and waking quickly again then absolutely try shhh pat.
But if your baby is falling asleep on a feed, transferring to cot/basket etc still asleep, and sleeping well then I don’t think feeding to sleep is a problem!
They’re all different but if you don’t have a problem at the moment I’d be inclined not to change anything!

I’m also wondering why you want to do this, feeding to sleep is totally natural. There are sleep hormones in breast milk, it is literally designed to send a baby to sleep!

Thank you for all your replies.
The reason I’m wanting to try this is because when I feed her to sleep for her naps, and then I try to silently roll over and off the bed ( we feed lying down to avoid having to have a transfer) she will wake up 9/10 as I have reached the door of the room, and we have to start all over again.

If I do manage to leave the room; I get enough time to boil the kettle for a cup of tea and then I notice she has woken.

If I lie next to her, she will have a lovely nap and then wake refreshed in approx 1.5 hours time, but (as much as I like lying in bed most of the day) I have things I need to do!

So I was hoping to teach her to fall asleep on her own in the hope that she would then stay asleep longer.

That’s all normal baby behaviour, we’re the only mammals that expect our babies to fall asleep on their own. It’s not evolutionary sound, babies don’t feel safe on their own, which is why self settling at that age is nonsense I totally understand how hard it is, but I’d make a cuppa and take it up with you. It doesn’t last forever.

Before my second I would totally agree not to do anything yet...because I hadn't done anything with my first yet and ended up with a total nightmare sleeper (of course lots to do with personality). However I started no2 in a routine from day 1 and it has been a dream. Purely anecdotal of course but I am convinced it's made a big difference. Feeding to sleep is natural and fine but I think it's fine to feed, put down and stay with baby til asleep. Your presence will comfort baby. I would never do cio or controlled crying on a baby that young, but that doesn't sound like what you're planning. Also, I would see if you can do something less labour intensive than shh ing and patting. Try conditioning baby with something like a comforter so that in future months you don't need to be sitting there for ages shh patting.

So you think just maybe keep on with the gentle removing myself at the end of feed and maybe swap myself for a comforter and keep trying to leave?
And she might start to put herself to sleep over the next few months?

I guess I don’t want to leave it too late and then she has a huge habit built up and it’ll be really hard to break, and I’ll be wishing I started earlier.

Even recently now sometimes she won’t feed to sleep so I’m needing to try something new.

Mine all slept so much better once they could fall asleep by themselves. Of course self settling isn't nonsense!
The patting stage is quite short and just an in between stage going from feeding to falling asleep on their own. My 5 month old mostly goes into the cot drowsy but awake now and falls asleep (and has 2 hour naps) but sometimes still needs a couple of minutes of patting.
Comfort blankets are also a really good idea.

In my experience it was much harder to break the habit with a 9 month old who still only napped on me and was up every hour in the night.
Yes, maybe if you wait long enough they might do it themselves but some people wait years.
The next two babies self settled, napped and fed well and are lovely and happy and healthy - and I am well rested.

I am someone who used shush/pat with a newborn (starting from 8 weeks) and in retrospect I would not have done anything different. The first 2 weeks were hard work but starting from week 10-12 shush/pat became a convenient go-to settling method whenever DD needed a bit of comfort. It still works wonders when DD is 13 (nearly 14 months) old (e.g. in periods of teething).

I would do exactly what @childmindingmumof3 suggested - feed till sleepy downstairs and then go up and shush/pat until the LO falls asleep. Until my DD was 12 weeks old, I used to shush/pat her in the Moses basket downstairs (where she slept from 6.30pm until the dream feed) but once she became too aware of her surroundings and started reacting to any minor noises, we began settling her in the cot for the night. I read all the actual research on SIDS I could find and it made me comfortable I did not take any excessive risks. The 6 months cut off is entirely arbitrary and in my case I was comfortable drawing the line at 12 weeks. Of course, it is an entirely personal decision that every family has to make on their own.

Just thinking here... how about if I shh/pat whilst she is feeding, and then remove myself earlier and earlier each time, but continue with the shh/pat until she falls asleep- working up to until eventually she will only need shh/pat and no feed? Would that work?

I just need someone to tell me how to actually do it! Like, today you shh/pat whilst feeding right up until she falls asleep, then tomorrow I shh/ pat until she is almost asleep then remove myself but continue to Shh/pat, the next day stop feeding when she is just about awake but still shh/pat until she goes to sleep, etc, working up to.... Lay her down shh/pat and she will fall asleep without feeding.

I do realise I am swapping feeding for
Shh/pat, is that just swapping one prop for another??

Can someone please just explain to me how to actually step-by - step get her asleep, by slowly weaning her off feeding and onto either shh/pat or comforter, or ideally she would be relying on nothing.

What I currently do is...
So when she wakes, change her nappy, then feed her so I know she isn’t hungry, then play/activity time, until I see sleep cues, offer another feed downstairs, then upstairs into quiet dark room; change nappy again, turn on lullaby, sit quietly, maybe begin to shh/pat whilst she is on my knee (maybe?) then what??? This is where I get confused!!

Because if I lay her down for sleep, she appears to want a feed so I do,and then she’s off to sleep, which is great, but then if I move, she wakes up and we have to go right back to the start.
Thanks so much everyone, sorry if I appear silly, I just would like someone to spell it out for me, so I have a plan of action! I would like some sort of routine in place before the dreaded 4 month sleep regression I keep hearing about!

Also, she has a tiny cold the past few days, would that be making her a bit more clingy, etc?

Are you feeding her to sleep at every nap or just bedtime?
I'll start with bedtime:
I usually feed downstairs in front of the TV. When she stops actively swallowing/falls asleep I take her off and put her on my shoulder (she still needs to burp sometimes) and take her up to bed.
I lie her on her side in her cot, give her her comfort blanket and pat her bum quite firmly while shhing in her ear.
At first you will need to do this until they are completely asleep, but as time goes on the patting is shorter and you will be able to stop as soon as her eyes close.
DD knows comfort blanket = sleep time now and often just putting the blanket next to her is enough to send her off the sleep without any patting.
Sometimes, if she isn't quite ready to sleep or is overtired and doesn't settle in a few minutes/sounds distressed I pick her up and feed her a bit more or rock/bounce her.
The key is to just make sure they aren't totally asleep when you put them down, so sometimes I just put her on my shoulder again or fuss her a bit so she knows she's going in her cot.
I think if you feed totally to sleep then sneak away, when they stir and realise you're gone they freak out a bit.

Thank you, this is really helpful.
So I usually feed to sleep for every sleep session, nap and at bedtime and dream feeding in the night. It seems to be the only way I can get her to sleep, apart from in the car/pram.

Sometimes my husband gives her a bottle and she falls asleep after feeding then too.

So it seems I am along the right line then with giving a feed downstairs and then going up, I just need to persevere with the shhh/pat in her crib then.
How long did it take from when you first introduced shh/pat until your wee one now just needs a few pats/blanket to fall asleep?
And what age were they when you started?
Just so I have an idea of how long this will take!
Thank you

I’d love to know how she knows I have snuck out!

She just had a bit of a carry-on going down for a nap this morning, then finally fell asleep, I crept out, and she slept for 20 mins.

So I’m feeding her again, to see if she want to get up for an activity, but she’s back to sleep now again!
I honestly don’t even know what to do! She is fine with her naps as long as I don’t leave the bed.
That’s finely I need to persist with shh/pat so she can fall asleep on her own, and know that I will come back again.

When she wakes after I sneak out, it isn’t in a panic though, she plays happily/ coos away to herself for up to 20 mins before beginning to get a bit upset and then if I leave her, she will then start crying.
What does that mean then-why is she waking, if she is not in a panic? Over/under tired?

She was awake for 2 hours this morning before she finally fell asleep. Normally it’s only 1.5 hours, but she was a bit out of routine this morning for whatever reason.

She has absolutely no idea that when you leave you have just gone into another room, she doesn’t have the brain capacity for that. So when she realises you’re not there, no mummy = danger.

This is DC3 so I'd learned from my mistakes with DC1 and made sure she was used to falling asleep in lots of ways and not reliant on feeding to sleep. I started getting her to sleep in her cot from about 3 months though.
With DC1 I guess it took a week or two to get from feeding to sleep to falling asleep in his cot with a bit of patting, but he was 9 months so it was harder/more ingrained and I didn't introduce a comforter.