Feeding to sleep

[SaltK]

My baby is 11 weeks old and I'm EBF, with 1 bottle a day for the last 2 weeks so he's used to it, just in case. My worry is, he feeds to sleep at night and through the night. Is this okay? Should I be starting to encourage him to self-soothe, or is he too young? I'm starting to dread the 4 month sleep regression if I'm going to be the only one who can get him back to sleep by feeding... What does everyone else do?

I used to feed my little one to sleep until he was about 5 months old when he started to reliably sleep for longer periods, when introduced a very loose routine, where I read a short book after a feed. At this point though I did help him to sleep by other methods I.e. rocking, patting, shushing. He’s now 10 months and self settles, the key is not to push it be led by your baby he’ll let you know when he’s ready to self settle. The biggest indicator he was ready to self settle for us, was when he began to arch is back and fuss when I was rocking him to sleep. Just enjoy the snuggly feeds while you can

I fed DS to sleep until he was 15 months old and one evening he pulled off, looked at me and pointed to his cot so I put him in and from that moment on I never needed to feed to sleep any more. I think there's lots of stigma around this and lots of 'advice' about getting babies to self settle but they really do work it out for themselves. Enjoy the lovely bonding time and congratulations on your baby.

If your LO is happy and sleeping well I wouldn't worry too much, we did stop feeding to sleep at around that age. (FF if that makes a difference)

But DD never really did well feeding to sleep, she had bad gas and slept lightly, so we slowly changed her day routine so she was fed when she woke from a nap.
This worked its was through to the night sleep. Just put her down slightly less drowsy every few days.

She does self settle really well now, sleeps through and has from about 4 months, now 6 months.
But who knows if this is more her than what we've done!
I'm sure if we have another they be completely different

Too young to self settle. Honestly OP, don't worry about stuff like this. There's no harm in feeding to sleep, it'll naturally stop as they get older, and if it doesn't and you want it to then you can deal with it at that point - no point making things harder for yourself now.

As for the 4 month regression, I wish I could offer advise but I'm still a bit traumatised 10 months on...

Thanks ladies, it's really helpful to hear. My instinct is that he still needs it, but you read so much conflicting advice. It's good to hear what others do.

Spam, you've terrified me 😂

But the important thing is I survived, and you will too 😂

Quite normal to feed to sleep at his age - even older.

Oh god. It really pisses me off how people say you shouldn't feed to sleep. Just another way to make a breastfeeding mothers feel even more stressed and inadequate. Every single breastfed baby feeds to sleep. It's what happens naturally. There's no stopping it. I am EBF my 7 month old and she is now stopping feeding to sleep herself. She now needs rocking / shushing. Which you apparently shouldn't do either. For godsake! If it is still working for you, why change? I'll do whatever works until there's a need to change. I'm sure you're doing a great job! Keep up the good work!

I'm still BF my nearly 14 mo.

Sometimes to sleep if he's ready, sometimes til he's messing about and then his dad takes over and soothes him when he's ready.

Feed at night too. Quickest and quietest to maximise sleep for all. Would like to stop really but he's not ready and the alternatives would be distressing for both of us.

You produce hormones in your milk to make LO sleepy (and yourself!). It's biologically normal and you shouldn't worry about what others say you 'should' do, just do what works for your family, know it's just a phase (always!)

Plus a sleep regression is on it's way and, just now, your baby is still in 4th trimester and really, developmentally should still be inside you!