Feeding as sleep association

[genia]

Hi
Our baby is 8.5 months old and is breastfed to sleep every night - he also wakes up several times each night at regular intervals and I feed him back to sleep. He spends half the night in his cot and half in bed next to me because I am too tired to sit up and feed him that way and also because moving him back to his cot sometimes wakes him up. I know it is not ideal to be feeding such an old baby so many times at night but feel stuck in a loop. I am wondering whether anybody has been in the same situation and managed to get out of it and HOW DID YOU DO IT and HOW LONG DID IT TAKE? I don't particularly want to do controlled crying - also because ds now stands up and I think he'd just stand in his cot screaming.
Any advice welcome!

Genia, join the club! Dd is 7 mos and still feeding to sleep and waking 1 - 2 times to feed. The No- Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley is a useful book. We have reduced the number of wakenings, and the length of the wakenings.

Best of luck

Genia, I do think you might have to listen to a very little crying if you want to get him out of this habit BUT it is so worth it. A decent night's sleep will change your life. My son didn't sleep through until nearly 8months and that was because we decided he should I started by cutting out night feeds - first between midnight and five, and then between bedtime and five and then between bedtime and morning. This took a couple of weeks. My dh went in to him in the no-feeding periods and settled him back. Then we did leave him. He only cried for 20mins max and that was quite tired sounding. He then went back to sleep. Once he wasn't being fed I felt confident about leaving him full stop and after about 5-10mins whinging he fell back asleep and now he sleeps 12 hours plus every night and it is fantastic. He's quite old enough to sleep through now without food and he will really benefit from unbroken sleep (as will you). I tried to think of him crying for something he wanted but wasn't very good for him, like sweets, which helped me deal with it. I know when you're tired you assume the worst and act as if that will definitely be the case (ie not trying to cut out feeds because you are so sure he will yell) but it truly isn't always nearly as bad as you think it will be. We found it relatively painless and we've all benefitted. My son uses a dummy though, which helped him still suck himself to sleep, but I don't have to be there to help him anymore.

genia - At 6 months ds was feeding to sleep every two hours and I was exhausted and depressed - after a lot of research I decided that a happy mummy would be better for him than a mummy dummy so I gave him his last feed before bedtime and then when he woke up I offered him water in a beaker instead ( you could try expressed milk in a bottle ), he would take a few sips and have a cuddle then would, amazingly, fall back to sleep (no crying). Within 3 nights he stopped waking up and crying for a feed.
I really didn't expect it to work but it did - so it may work for you.
I still haven't done any controlled crying on ds (now 1 yr old) and if he has a cold or is teething he will wake up for a cuddle at night, but he settles without a feed which means dh and I can take turns.
Hope this helps
BB

My DD is 9 m.o and wakes up twice at night for a feed, at 10 pm and 3 am and at 5am we take into our bed as she won't stop crying even after her full feed. I tried leaving her crying at night, it didn't help. When she was about3 m.o she used to sleep through the night, but from 6 m.o it's getting worse and worse.

Lilia, I'm beginning to sound like a scratched record, but get the EP book- it helped us- both to understand why dd was waking, and to improve her sleep pattern. Results are not overnight, but a gradual change for the better, without crying it out.

BTW, at 9 months I would have thought that your dd doesn't NEED those feeds if she is getting enough during the day, so maybe bluebears water/ EBM trick would work for you. I keep meaning to try it myself, but last time I armed DH with a bottle of EBM to give dd in the night she didn't wake, and it was wasted!

She doesn't need those feeds. Try getting your dh to go into her and comfort her but stay strong and DON'T feed her. She'll very quickly start eating more during the day. I let my ds have a big feed at 5am while I was dropping the night feeds, then dropped that one last and made it 6am and then 7am. You don't have to leave her to cry straight away. Drop the feeds first - lots of cuddles, comforting, maybe a little water but no feed - and only once you've cracked that try to controlled crying. IMO cc won't work until you stopped the night feeds, and then I suspect it will work quickly and relatively painlessly. Good Luck.

Hmm, one glass of wine and typing & grammar go completely out of the window...

My DD is 10 months old and recently prefers not to breastfeed to sleep. She might nurse for a moment, but then she rolls over and wiggles a bit and then drifts off. I'm convinced that eventually she won't nurse at all but will just cuddle up (actually, she did that this afternoon nap). And then, eventually, she won't need to cuddle up to me but her daddy will as a comforting presence, instead. At some point she'll just go to sleep by herself. It's working out really well.

My 1st baby... I still nursed him to sleep in the evenings every night until he was 18 months old. But after 11 months I just cuddled & sang & talked to him if he woke up in the middle of the night. The first few nights of night weaning I left DH to go comfort the baby. Husbands never take crying as seriously... but DH tells me there was almost no crying.

To be honest, I'm less bothered about it all, now, with my 2nd. I reckon DD will drop me as a sleep aid when she's ready. She sometimes sleeps in our bed, usually I can shift her to her cot without a fuss. I reckon she'll get in there full time, eventually. To be honest, I just go sleep on the couch if the bed feels crowded.

I know these aren't answers for everyone... but for me, a bit of laissez faire definitely has kept me more sane than trying to feel like I had to be in control of the situation. Sometimes (like when I'm shattered and DD has nursed for more than 40 minutes at bedtime) I have left babies to cry, but it's a much more pleasant life to avoid all that.

Plus, all the extra nursing keeps my periods away. And that's such a terrific health bonus, I can put up with a bit of sleep deprivation.

Thanks for everybody's thoughts. Last night I didn't feed ds on one of the occasions he woke up and after a long while, singing and patting he did go to sleep. I think he woke up fairly quickly after that and that time I did feed him as he made such a pathetic little sound, but I'm pleased I managed to not feed him one of the times. I'll let you know how I get on - good luck to everyone in the same situation... Zebra, I know what you mean about having a bit of a "laissez faire" attitude - I was somehow under the impression (also because of all the people who ask "is he sleeping through the night yet" - I asked my parents to stop asking me) that in an ideal world the baby kind of disappears at night - well, they clearly don't, and what's more - why should they? Still, I would rather not have to wake up every 2 hours!
Eugeniaxx