Feeding to sleep - how do you change the routine?

[crazychemist]

Curious as to how others have tackled this, especially with older ones.

I don’t necessarily want to stop immediately. For medical reasons DD could not sleep alone (very severe sleep apnoea) and had s LOT of night wakings. I was happy to have a way of comforting her when she was extremely distressed, and she was always exhausted. The apnoea was corrected with surgery last month, which has been wonderful for the whole family.

We’re now trying to make some changes as DD should now be able to learn to sleep like any other toddler. She’s used to going without sleep so we’re not rushing anything.

Dropped by her nap basically fixed bedtime, although it causes some nightwaking from over tiredness. I’m hoping this will pass as she adjusts to the new routine.

I’d like to not have to feed her when she wakes at night. Ideally I’d like to end cosleeping. I’d love some suggestions on what might be the best order to tackle this, or hear any stories of how you dealt with either.

Nobody had this issue then? Am I the only person still feeding toddler to sleep?
(She can go to sleep in other ways, but won’t If she knows I’m available. DH would struggle to do bedtime each night for long)

If she's formula fed reduce the amount of milk each time you feed her

From what I remember, feeding my now 3 yr old to sleep stopped by itself, it didn’t work anymore to make her fall asleep and so we just had to make a new routine. So perhaps an earlier start to bedtime routine so she is not so tired when you are feeding her? We night weaned at 13/14mo and I’m sure she’d stopped feeding to sleep by then. We tried to stop cosleeping at a similar time and suffered dreadfully for around 3 months, when we decided to give up and try again later. About 18mo she started to sleep through the odd night, and closer to 2 she went into her own bed happily. It was interesting what she would say about sleep once she could talk articulately, basically showed she believed that we had to put her to sleep (we always lay with her and sang til she fell asleep). Your DD is likely the same given that’s been her experience. In the last few months since she’s had a baby sister, she’s just had to learn to go to sleep herself. She resisted at first and we were firm and used chocolate rewards. Amazingly she is now going to sleep herself and sleeping through almost every night. With my second I’ll expect her to do this sooner I think, I’ll be a bit less baby led having seen how my first could adapt fairly easily when we showed her what was going to happen and encouraged her that she could do it.

Hi @Lauren, she’s breastfed so I can’t really control the amount. She has a cup of milk before her bath, so it’s comfort rather than thirst/hunger.

I guess I’m quite nervous as I’m doing this a lot later than I thought I would be because of her health complications. I feel embarrassed to ask anyone in RL because I think it would get raised eyebrows to be breastfeeding a 2.5 yo to sleep.

With DH, she’ll go to sleep on his chest, but only after crying for about 15 minutes (apparently the literally screams and screams, even with her eyes closed, and then she stops at some point because she’s fallen asleep). So far we’ve only done this for naps instead of bedtime.
@Merename I’m certain DD does think sleep is something that we do to her, rather than something that she can do herself. Can I ask what your routine/system is for her going to sleep by herself?

I stopped feeding ds1 as 2.5 and he had always fed to sleep. I explained that he was going to be sleeping in his cot now. Got him in pj's and sleeping bag and put him in his cot for story.

First night he stood back up probably 60 times, I lost count. The next night about half as much and only a few the 3rd night. He got that I meant it.

Of course now he is older he wants to sleep in my bed, but that's another story!

Do you want to wean completely or just the night time feeds?

Swett sleep has lots of gentle suggestions around nudging towards night weaning. Things like delaying a feed by having her on dad's side of the bed or wearing butting up pjs/going to the loo/offering water/ a cuddle first. Sometimes they drop the feed because it's too much wggord sometimes it delays the feed but if you delay every feed by 10more minutes each night you soon start dropping them

Then you could work on getting her into her own bed later if your still happy to cosleep? Or even in conjunction with going in her own bed? You know her best in that respect. DD night weaned herself but I know there's no way she would have accepted two big changes in one go.

I found night feeds went away as mine grew older. But the first step was not to feed to sleep in the evening. One night I only "allowed" him 15 minutes on each side (he was 3 months old) then stroked his belly and shshed until he stopped moaning. This took about 40 minutes. Next night was maybe 15 minutes then on the 3rd or 4th night I was able to just walk out. I remember lying on the corridor floor waiting for any crying to then rush in, but nothing happened.

I've never refused milk in the night as I'm just too tired in the night and it's the easiest way to settle. At 14mo he is reliably not waking up but I have fed him recently if he has been ill etc.

@Valkarie was there a lot of screaming when you did that? I feel that it’s such a comfort to DD and she’s so used to it that it’s bound to be really hard on her to give it up. She has no trouble napping at nursery (she just lies down with the other kids) or with my mum (who takes her out in the pram), but we’ve just never done bedtime any other way. She doesn’t have a hugely close bond to DH unfortunately. Other than just keeping getting up, did he just nod off while you were reading to him? Or did you sit and wait quietly till he was asleep?

@icclemunchy I guess I just want to move closer towards weaning, I’m not in a rush but I feel like if I want to do it gently I need to get started at some point! She’s very dependent on it for comfort, especially at bed time. Night weaning would be a big step, and probably a sensible one, but I know I’m probably in for a few hellish nights if I do that and it just never seems to be the right time! Probably sounds ridiculous if I say I can’t face a huge number of bad,y broken nights until the summer holidays, but I’ve had so much bad sleep I want to hang on to the relatively decent rest I’m now getting!

@Blueberrycheesecake, that sounds sensible. I guess the idea is if they can self settle at bedtime then they are more likely to do so at night? That might be something I could get to work. DD is now too old to easily do exactly what you did, but I wonder if it would work if DH did the waiting it out at bedtime, but then I feed her if she wakes at night..... I can see that might backfire in terms of night wakings, but might be worth a try!

The best bit about the nudging method is its flexible. So plan a is yes I'll feed you but I'm just going to get a glass of water and go for a wee first. Plan b is I'm going to just feed you straight away. You know her well enough to know which plan you need in which moment.

A lot of mums who come to our bf group find that once they start delaying or dropping a feed others rapidly follow. Many choose to keep feeding to sleep at bedtime just not during the night but others stop completely.

Do you have a LLL group locally? There's likely lots of mums there who are in the same position or have been through it. Or you could try the helpline

Both of mine fed to sleep until they were 3 (bf, not formula). I lengthened story time and they started getting sleepy during stories and would sometimes fall asleep without bf. Then when we did stop bf completely (which they knew was coming with advance discussion etc) it wasn't too big a change to just read instead. Of course I was then trapped with reading them to sleep, but at least other people can do that! And my 7yo will now read himself to sleep. I know a lot of people would probably not want to be so involved at bedtime for so long though.

(I don't mean that last sentence to sound judgy, just that if you want a quick fix then don't listen to me!)

I stopped all breastfeeding at the same time, not just feeding to sleep. It meant he stopped napping, but that helped with him being tired at night. I still sat with him until he went to sleep. Sometimes that was during stories, but not usually.

I would stop the co-sleeping first, otherwise she'll be next to you in the night and it will remind her she can feed. If you stop co-sleeping first, then it will probably be easier to stop feeding when it's time for that, as she won't have the constant reminder. The only problem is it is harder for you as you'll have to get out of bed in between if she needs feeding.

Maybe do this:

1. Get her a bed big enough for you to fit in too
2. Sleep in it with her for a while until she's used to that being her bed
3. Transition to you sleeping in your own bed
4. Get up to feed her in the night for a while
5. Start night weaning

Agree it's best to stop co-sleeping first - when we stopped sharing a room my baby quickly stopped waking so much for milk (maybe coincidence?) and also you don't then jump up at the slightest sound / not so easy for them to feed.

Have you also tried naps in prams to help break the association? (That's how I extended my LO's naps from the 45 minute cycles he was in for what felt like ages). One of my friends once told me that you work on night sleep during the day, not during the night. Found that a really comforting thought - ie working on naps (length, timing, method) and bedtime routing will lead to good night sleep. I am terrible in the night so have never been strong willed enough not to take the easy route. But then each baby is different and mine has not been waking consistently since he was quite young.

And I would recommend trying one day where you know your baby isn't overtired and has napped well but not too much... how old is she?

Thanks for all the advice everyone!

Alas DD very rarely naps now (she’s 2.5), and we’re probably going to cut them out all together pretty soon. That does mean one less opportunity to practice independent sleep. But she’s always been better at napping alone and doesn’t have a feed for her nap when I’m at work.

She’s pretty tired at bedtime as dropping the nap is relatively recent, so that might help her to fall asleep in a different way..... but it’s 50/50 if she’s overtired and wakes after an hour. I think I’ll try a mixture of what’s been suggested and see how it goes!

1. Sleeping in a different room (we currently both sleep in her room on two mattresses pushed together, before her surgery she had to be monitored 24/7)
2. Continuing to offer milk when she wakes, but getting DH to try putting her to bed (Easter hols are coming up, so he might be up for that)
3. Swapping night feeds when she wakes for cuddles, and eventually patting/shushing
4. I’ll drop the morning feed last

Fingers crossed for me, my aim is going to be to get her fully weaned by the end of August if possible (she’s 3 in September)

Thanks for your advice ladies!