night feeds - should baby be awake to go back to cot?

[squilliams]

My 10 wk ds has a routine for when it's his bedtime, which ends with him being put in his cot whilst he is still awake. He usually then gets himself to sleep within 5-10 minutes . He wakes up 2 or 3 times in the night for a feed, but falls asleep on the breast so is asleep when he goes back to his cot. The question is, should I be waking him before putting him back to bed? I've heard that if baby falls asleep during feeds they will always need feeding to get to sleep, but he manages to get himself to sleep at the start of the evening. If I should wake him after night feeds, how should I do it? We keep the lights really low at night, so I don't want to turn the lights on to wake him up (plus that would not be fair on dh) and I try not to talk to ds at night (as I don't want him waking for the comfort) so I don't want to wake him that way. Tickling his cheek doesn't work, so I don't know how to wake him up. Should I just be grateful that he can get himself to sleep once at night, and leave it at that?

Good grief no. Never wake a sleeping baby!

I woke dd for a "dream feed" at 10pm once - took us 2 hours to get her back to sleep and she still woke at 1:30 for her usual feed.

Your ds is very very little and going to sleep by himself at bedtime is fantastic for that age - he is doing really well.

when i was BFing my DS at night i could never tell whether he was awake or asleep when i put him back down (i certainly fell asleep a few times whilst feeding him )
if he can settle to sleep on his own at bedtime that is great

I really wouldn't worry about it - it sounds like he's doing really well putting himself to sleep in the evenings so he's obviously capable of it, which is great at his age.

At night you want to keep feeds as low key and quick as possible, and if that means he falls asleep in the breast, that's fine.

You're dong a great job - enjoy it!!

If he were becoming dependent on your nipple as a 'sleep association', he would wake when you have put him in his cot after a feed and discover the nipple isn't there any more - at least, that is what my dd always does . If he doesn't, it can't be a problem?? It would be different if you were feeding him to sleep at bedtime.

Don't fret it Squilliams. Feeding to sleep doesn't mean you're always going to be doing it at all. Everyone has a different experience and all babies are different so what applies for whoever told you that may not apply to you. You're doing a wonderful job. Enjoy him, this bit is over so quickly even if it feels like forever right now. There really is nothing more beautiful than bf'ing your gorgeous baby to sleep and seeing the contentment on their litte face.

Another 'god, no!' I'm not even sure I believe the thing about being able to settle if they've gone to sleep independently. My 11mo is great at going to sleep alone but still has patches of waking ever 45 minutes. And when I do bf him to sleep he often sleeps longer than if I don't. So I'd say experiment a bit and do whatever seems to work. They change so fast that I wouldn't worry too much about 'habits'

Thanks for all the reassurance . What with all the conflicting advice I'd been getting from different HVs, I was getting quite confused (you can tell I'm a first-time mum!). I'll let him sleep on then (thank goodness for that!)