How do you get baby to sleep without feeding them?

[Kay1341]

My 4.5 half month old won't sleep without me feeding him to sleep. He cries like crazy when I put him down or hold him in cradle hold, but when he's upright he's too interested in everything to become drowsy. He continues crying louder and louder if I try and comfort him. I always have to feed him to sleep, even I give him a big feed before naptime. He won't take a dummy.

Any advice?

It's so hard! We've been trying to break the feed to sleep association. My DD was so angry at first but I just kept up with holding and shushing and petting until she calmed down and dropped off. It was awful at first but gets easier as they learn to fall asleep.

Mind you now she won't fall asleep if I'm not holding her and shushing and petting her so maybe I've just swapped one problem for another!

Are you happy with feeding him to sleep? If so, why not carry on for a bit? You’re in prime sleep regression territory, mine was really hard to settle at that time so you might find it’s easier to break the habit later.

Feed your baby to sleep, he is still tiny. DD stopped feeding to sleep on her own at 13 months. From then on I’d put her down and do sssh/pat, then just shushing and then just laying with her. She’s 3.5 now and goes to sleep no issues, sleeps through etc.

DD2 is 6 weeks old and is already self settling but that’s nothing I’ve done differently. They’ll all do it at their own pace. What’s the rush.

We didn’t do it until 11 months when his bedtime feed was formula and he had to have his teeth cleaned. Wasn’t great for a few nights and we then cuddled him to sleep for at least a year. We’re now on and off holding his hand and just starting to insist he puts himself to sleep at 3.5. At no point did it mean he woke every two hours as per scare stories!

Do you really want to do it now? If you do, you’ll have to stick with whatever plan you make, but there’s no reason to stop now if it’s not bothering you. Some babies are velcro babies at this age, but they all grow up!

He's too tiny to think about stopping the feeding to sleep. He'll grow out of it, but no hurry!

He's a baby. Feed him to sleep. They are literally built to do that - breastmilk has hormones in at night time to make you both sleepy. Breastfeeding or bottle, no reason to fight what nature intended and make both of you miserable in the process.

I have two by the way and they both fed to sleep for months. My oldest was 17 months when he stopped (himself). They grow out of it eventually.

Fine if you want to continue - 4.5 months is teeny tiny in terms of habit forming territory.

If it’s getting inconvenient though, would a buggy work?

At about this age, I had some success with a bouncy chair for naps with my first. I had to bounce it - the vibrate setting did nothing - and it took a while, but she would drop off in that though. Night times, I just fed to sleep till 9 months when it stopped working. I then had to just sit by her cot till she fell asleep - there was literally nothing I could do. Took a few weeks for it to drop from 45 minutes to go off to about 10.

I night weaned at 13 months using a very gentle approach: drjaygordon.com/attachment/sleeppattern.html

4.5 months seems very, very young to be doing that though- and be aware of the 4 month sleep regression. We used a very gentle sleep consultant too (No CIO methods as they aren't for me) - and went from my son feeding hourly overnight to sleeping in his own room and cot. She won't take on babies until 6 months though but she changed our lives

How long does he cry? If it's only a couple of minutes leave him to it. (Time it, it sounds like forever!) Some of them need to cry themselves to sleep, one of mine did.