How to stop nursing to sleep

[Otterington23]

Hi all, I don’t mind nursing my 6 month old to sleep at all, but she’s now waking up after every single sleep cycle crying throughout the night.

Ever since she was born, nursing has been the only way to get her to either nap or go to bed. No nursing, no sleep - she just cries and no amount of shushing, rocking, singing, patting, or white noise will help.

We have a solid and consistent bed time routine. I’ve tried moving her feeds to earlier in the routine but makes no difference.

Once she’s asleep she’s very easy to put down. Until she wakes 45-60 minutes later.

I’ve started co sleeping just so I can get some sleep but also ensure I’m doing it safely - I woke up one night to find her latched on, which I must’ve done in my sleep!

i know it could very well be a regression, but we’ve had a “regression” since since was 3 months old. It’s been slowly getting worse until it’s now peaked.

I’ve tried following all the advice, but Everyone tells you what not to do and nobody tells you what to do in the case of them crying.

Cry it out is not an option for us.

Any and all advice would be hugely appreciated!!

I wish I could help but I'm currently bursting my 1year old who is doing the same, I've tried water she just screams and screams until she had milk. I hope someone has some answer for us x

Wish I could help but no advice really. I sleep in bed with my 21 month old who still feeds to sleep and at several times during the night. My now 4 year old did the same and eventually stopped on her own when she was about 2 ish. You’re doing amazing, there’s no right or wrong x

If you are shushing, rocking, singing and patting every time she cries, are you sure you aren’t overstimulating her and prolonging the crying?

If you remove the only sleep cue she knows, then chances are she is going to cry until she’s learnt another. Might be worth thinking about what cues you can live with I.e. bars of cot, hand on her tummy and sitting quietly next to her until she drops off and then work from there.

@RafaistheKingofClay so these are all things I’ve been doing while feeding her to sleep to try and create new sleep cues. I chose one bedtime lullaby that I’ve sang her to sleep since day 1, I sing for a little bit and then swap to quiet shushing after a while. Rocking is a new one that’s never really worked so giving up on that. About 2 months ago I introduced gently patting her bottom while feeding, and we had about a week of success with using it to get her down for her morning nap last month but otherwise it only sometimes works 🫠 I have tried just sitting next to her before but she screams, hand on her tummy she just thrashes and tried to push me away. Literally as soon as she leaves my arms she just enters demon mode, always has! So unless I’m willing to let her just cry, anything that involves putting her down with no boob just doesn’t work 😵‍💫

@Loveskin2024 thank you! I honestly don’t mind nursing to sleep or during the night, we had a rough start to breastfeeding and I absolutely love every moment of it. But now that she’s waking every hour looking for it, I’m not sure if it’s causing issues with connecting her sleep cycles. But maybe she’s just having long sleep regressions that have merged into one giant one 😂 I really hope we can keep feeding as long as you’ve managed! 🙌 just maybe with a few less night feeds…

@PMAmostofthetime You’ve got this!! Honestly I don’t think there is an answer, otherwise advice that works would be freely available as sounds like it’s something pretty much everyone faces 🫣 if you do try something that gets a result, please share the wisdom 😅

Following as having the same issue with my 6m FF baby - has to be fed or rocked to sleep and if you try to put her down without, or try to put her down awake she does the same demon thrashing and screaming! She had very intense colic for 4 months so we've created a rod for our own backs I think. Desperately trying to avoid Co sleeping as I know I won't sleep but sometimes it's the only way she will settle.

I've friends who tells me their kids naturally grew out of it, so fingers crossed!

Apparently babies don't need milk during the night at 6m (I waited till 7/8 months though, 6 months seemed too young) - time to consider night weaning?

Your partner, if you have one, takes a week off and does all night wakes offering water in a bottle/patting/lullabies/settling however they want to do it throughout the week (or at least 3-5 nights in a row). The sleep habit is broken. Baby knows your partner can't provide milk so doesn't cry in the same way so it's less stressful.

You just have to be super strict with yourself not to feed to sleep again or else you set up the same old sleep associations which are frankly killer and also completely natural and so hard to avoid.

Mine went in their own room from before 6 months, and we did gradual retreat when they cried, no feeding.

Still do this with our 15 month old… no advice, just lots of love and good luck. My back is aching after I rock my ds to sleep… but really no other way he will settle. 😣😣

Cuddling to sleep in bed is what worked for me, but ds had a full size single bed rather than a cot so that was a lot easier

We cracked this recently. This is what worked for us:

Was almost exclusively breastfeeding but decided we wanted to stop getting her out of the cot as much at night.

So made up 3 bottles of formula before bed and refrigerated. When she woke in the night we microwaved bottle for a few secs to take chill off (obviously shake well after) and gave to her to drink in the cot, then held hands through bars/rested hand on her tummy until she fell asleep.

The first night she had all the bottles, the second night she only had the first, by a few nights in she was refusing all the bottles and happy with just the hand through bars.

That said, she wasn't ready to go through the night without milk until 10 months onwards. 6 months would be quite early to night wean, but the milk being in a bottle would deal with hunger if that's an issue but break the bf to sleep cycle. You could use expressed milk if that was your preference.

It’s hard when they’re so young, they do go through odd stages of sleep but things do change!. I love co sleeping and barely wake when mine still feeds at night. I’m enjoying all the extra cuddles I get as I know this time with my babies won’t be forever ❤️

This is us right now with our 20 month old. Reading that they stopped on their own at 2 has given me hope! Were you then able to put them down awake in their own bed and they could settle themselves or did you still need them to be asleep first and put them down?

@TryinghisbestDad she became less interested and we did the gradual retreat method were you keep going back to give them a kiss until they fall asleep. I got it off the nhs website under sleep issues. Good luck, it’s not easy sometimes but it’s not forever ❤️

@Otterington23
Hello
sorry to drag this old thread up but having similar problems- wondering if anything worked in the end?