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How to get out of feed to sleep association?

5 replies

Sunnylands27 · 21/09/2021 20:53

FTM here with 3.5mnth old DD.
So, she slept horrifically from birth to 9wks like waking every hour in bedside crib. I was feeling like a crazy woman from sleep deprivation & even worse like a crap mum. As such, I tried co-sleeping & it’s worked like a dream with DD only waking 2-3x a night from 7.30-7.00 sometimes 8.00!
But, I’ve always fed to sleep (EBF - tried giving formula and EBM but DD is not a fan at all & will take max 1-2oz) which just started when she was a newborn and would fall asleep feeding naturally. Then somehow between trying to get her into a routine with good daytime naps & now, we’ve just ended up feeding to sleep every time, though occasionally will rock and swing to sleep.
I would love to get her in her own crib though so she can sleep well if we go on trips etc otherwise I’ll end up also going to bed at 7:30pm & never have any grown up time.. I really miss my partner as I’m currently sleeping in her nursery on spare bed with her.
Trouble is, I know I need to stop the feeding to sleep in order to start getting her to go into her bed but feeding makes her so sleepy! Would you wake her after a feed and try to encourage sleep by mixing up other sleep associations like rocking, patting shushing etc?
Any tips on how to phase out feeding to sleep & co-sleeping would be really helpful!

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mayblossominapril · 21/09/2021 21:00

I wouldn’t be so quick to get rid of feed to sleep as it works quickly and effectively. Can you carefully transfer the sleeping child to their own cot? I do this with dd. Lay in bed feed her to sleep wait until she’s well asleep, but don’t wait to long, then lift into cot. Unfortunately now she’s 13 months I have to lift her down into a cot but it was easy when she was in a Moses basket.
Warm up where you are going to put them otherwise the cold makes them stir.

110APiccadilly · 21/09/2021 21:06

My DD was older than your DD when I stopped feeding to sleep - about 8 months - but I wasn't co-sleeping. But what really helped for her was DH putting her to bed. So she'd have a feed with me, then I'd pass her over to DH, which would wake her up anyway if she'd actually fallen asleep, then he'd cuddle her till she fell asleep, then put her in her cot asleep. She did cry a bit but she had DH there to comfort her. We then moved to DH putting her in the cot awake, and now either of us can put her in the cot awake.

If I tried to cuddle her to sleep she just wanted to feed and would get furious!

I'm in the privileged position of having DH around during the day but if I hadn't I'd have done pram naps while we were working on this as that used to be the only way she'd fall asleep without feeding.

Gorl · 22/09/2021 21:14

I did this by ‘habit stacking’ - lots of info online, it worked really well for us.

Shellfishblastard · 22/09/2021 21:19

We fed to sleep for quite a bit longer - but both DD’s slept in their own bed.

We used a method by Elizabeth Pantley - think it was called the pull of method. Where you remove the nipple from the babies mouth as soon as they stop actively feeding. Can’t remember all the details but it worked a treat and I was able to put both DD’s down in bed and leave them.

That said - at 3.5 months we still had the girls in a Moses basket in the living room with us. So we would have done the pantly method when they were older.

Sunnylands27 · 22/09/2021 22:37

Thanks guys, it works well but I am ready to try something new especially since my partner etc will also want to put her to bed at some point. Will look into Habit stacking & fingers crossed we’ll get there and her into her own bed at some point Smile not rushing it as she’s still tiny but want to gently introduce some new methods!

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