Why is feeding to sleep bad?

[mamatoizzybee]

I feed my 9 week old daughter to sleep because it works . She is breast fed and the only thing that comforts her is the boob ! (I don't know about other babies , but my daughter uses the boob massively for comfort throughout the day as well as before bed!)

Our rough night time routine is : bath, cuddles and soft chat , feeding , sleep . Why is this bad?
I aim to breastfeed for 6 months and then wean her to bottles. Will I have a harder time getting her to sleep when I don't want to breastfeed anymore? Will she associate sleep with being nursed ? Will she still want to comfort from me after 6months ?

Does breastfeeding hurt when babies have teeth ?

My 3 week old falls asleep every time I feed her...sometimes mid feed. I have no idea how to stop this?! Every book and article says ‘put your baby down when they are drowsy but awake’...feel like my child is either awake and alert, hungry (and wailing), feeding or sleeping...there is no drowsy by awake unless I stop her mid feed but I can’t imagine putting her down in her cot at that point will work...

Because sometimes you can be unlucky and have a pain in the butt baby that won't fall asleep on the feed and nothing else will work until you can get some more down her and hope for the best. She wasn't a big fan of sleeping as a baby(or toddler )anyways, so it might've been her rather than the (11357632 billion) methods.

Modge forget the drowsy but awake crap! Honestly. It just doesn’t happen for most babies. Do what works for you and if feeding to sleep works then do it- your baby is only tiny and it’s perfectly normal.

One simple thing you could start doing when it suits you is to half-wake your baby as you transfer them to bed, instead of stealth-shuffling them in.

Always fed my two to sleep while singing lullabies - it was Mummy’s magic milk and Mummy’s magic music!! Absolutely loved it, them and me! When we stopped breastfeeding, we still had cuddles and lullabies. They’re teenagers now and I miss those days! Forget the books and do what you feel is right. If it works for you and your baby, ignore everyone else!

I found it so conflicting too but just kept feeding to sleep. I was tired and it seemed the easiest and most natural thing to do. Was brutal when he was hit by the 4 month regression and was waking 4-10 a night for 3 months! People kept telling me he is only waking to feed as you have created this habit etc etc etc.
Then in his own time (7months) he started sleeping 9-11 hrs straight. When he wakes I will always feed him lying next to me and enjoy having him so close.
He was hugely effected by the regression and I think making it as soothing as possible was the best thing.
Good luck and enjoy.

And yes, you may want to introduce a bottle: we left it too late and had a refuser

Thank you every one ☺️ it's so nice to hear that this is what everyone else does too - I agree , it does feel natural and normal to feed back to sleep - plus it's the only thing that works for us . I don't mind, as it's easy to do, I enjoy it and as I say - it works!! I've decided to stop reading things so much now and go with my own instincts , it's the best way! It's so hard that everyone has an opinion on baby stuff and people like to really push those opinions on you as well.

Thanks also for the tips on the bottle. Fortunately we have been using an occasional bottle. My daughter isn't exclusively breastfed (90% breastfed , with a 10% top up of formula occasionally after a feed for my husband to bond with her and give me a rest from time to time) I'm so glad I introduced this and I'm so lucky that she took to it just fine and has no issues whatsoever.

It isn’t bad. It’s the biological norm for babies. It’s our screwed up attitude to our babies in western society that is bad.

You keep on doing what makes you and your baby happy op😊

When you have a baby everyone has an opinion. I find it best just to nod, smile and ignore

My son is five months and I have always fed him to sleep. I spent a lot of time stressing because all the books said it was bad but eventually I decided to dump the books and just do what felt right. Looking back I wish I’d done that earlier! Feeding to sleep works well for us.

Four month regression hit at 16 weeks and lasted for about two weeks: one week of sleep getting worse and one week of sleep getting better again. On the worst night I think he woke 4-5 times. He’s now nearly 22 weeks and wakes 1-2 times per night and I can usually feed him and get him back to sleep within 30-40 minutes.

The downside is that I am the only one that can get him to sleep which means that we can’t get my mum to babysit and go out unless we go after he’s in bed at 8 but I can live with that for a year or so.

Not bad at the moment but can be bad if it becomes habit and is the only way baby gets to sleep. You could end up with a baby that can’t link sleep cycles and then wakes very frequently eg hourly (has happened to me twice).

My baby is 8 months and wakes every 30 minutes and will only go back to sleep for my boob. I wish I could turn back time and not feed her to sleep.

Since I was looking at a lot of these threads a few months ago, I want to add that it’s not true for all babies that they can’t go back to sleep without boob if they’re BF to sleep. Does that make any sense? What I mean to say is that I BF to sleep but my husband can re-settle during the night; that is, despite being fed to sleep my baby doesn’t need boob every time he wakes up. Hope that helps someone out there !

I went a bit nuts reading about everything you should and shouldn't do, but babies really are very different! Whether I feed my baby to sleep or put her in her cot awake makes no difference to how often she wakes at night. I know that's not always the case though. I think it's best to trust your instincts. For example my baby can't follow the suggested routines because she needs a lot more sleep than the average. Probably because she has grown at a momentous pace (tripled birth weight at six months!!!) I tried doing a routine and ended up with an absolutely miserable and sleep deprived baby!!!