Feeding To Sleep: How The Hell Do You Stop?

[PippityChippity]

As per title.

DD is 14 months old and is breast obsessed when I’m around. She’s been fed to sleep since birth but I’m at total breaking point with it now. I went back to work at the start of month, in a busy, professional role with a lot of responsibility and I’m still breastfeeding to sleep and dealing with all night wake ups - As I have done since she was born.

We are having to co-sleep as she wakes up anywhere from 3 to 10 times a night and is unable to settle herself. I’m at breaking point; I’ve not had a proper nights sleep since I fell pregnant with her as suffered with insomnia during pregnancy. I am drained and depleted and want a way out of this.

One answer is sleep training which we’ve really struggled to do consistently as she will cry for hours ( We had 3 nights of 6 hours of almost continuous screaming where she ended up vomiting and making herself hoarse). DH works away a fair bit and we have a DS3 who needs my attention too (Who is incidentally a brilliant sleeper). I had a very difficult relationship with my own mother which I think has left me with some trauma whereby I find it very hard listening to my children upset. It’s obviously practically impossible to sleep train without some crying.

If DD knows I’m in the house or can hear me, it’s game over. DH has no chance at all of settling her. No relatives close by to stay with and I’ve tried going out for the evening only to come back to him stressed out of his mind with DD screaming the house down. Wtf is next?

Quite happy to carry on feeding during the day when I’m with her but the nights are something else now 😢 I want sleep back.

Any advice would be gratefully appreciated.

Oh you poor thing!!!
I did not bf so my sleep training will have been different and also ds was a lot younger.

You say she won't settle knowing your there so could you take a few nights away and dp can sleep train? Or even pay a sleep consultant to come and assist him?

This sounds so tough!

My DD is only 4 months but I really relate to what you’re saying - including a difficult relationship with my mother which makes me hate the idea of ever letting DD cry.

I don’t have any practical advice unfortunately but just wanted to offer some sympathy!

I don’t co sleep, but my 16 month old son was fed to sleep his whole life until very recently. I would breastfeed him and he would fall asleep in my arms, I’d leave him for a few minutes then put him in the cot. This was the only way he would sleep at night, and during the day he wouldn’t be put down at all and I’d have to hold him for the whole nap. A couple of months ago he just randomly grew out of it. He still breastfeeds but it rarely gets him off to sleep anymore, unless he’s really tired. He decided that he prefers to go to sleep in his cot and now won’t sleep in my arms. He even takes naps in his cot which I thought he would never do. I wish I could tell you how I did it but I honestly have no idea. He just stopped feeding to sleep in his own time.

I stopped feeding to sleep when ds was 17 months as I was pregnant and needed to stop (for myself as well as the fact my milk was going to dry up shortly!) slightly different as I was only feeding to sleep and in the night a couple of times at this point, so no day time feeds apart from nap.
We kind of went cold Turkey but it worked well, I'll just explain what we did below in case helpful.
Night 1 - stayed at my parents (could you take ds3 to a hotel?) husband had never settled ds to sleep but just went for it. Took about 90 mins but managed it. Woke a few times but managed to settle him. Not easy but worked far better than expected with me not around. I came back in the morning and ds barely acknowledged me (in a good way!) had a normal day, did his nap in the car
Night 2 - went back to my parents. Much better night for husband, tooo maybe 45 mins to get him down? And less wake ups. Still not a breeze but far better than expected!
Nights 3 - 5 - I was back home but slept in spare room whilst husband did bedtime/ nights. One evening it took almost 2 hours to settle! But others improved. Only 1 or 2 wakings which was incredible
Night 6 - I did bedtime, took half hour. No going for boobs and easy to resettle in night

We had a couple of weeks of car naps as couldn't settle him in day but that didn't last
We still co sleep now but he largely sleeps through now and far easier to get to sleep and takes no resettling. Also a game changer having husband able to do bedtime now!

Hope that's helpful, good luck!

I feel your pain. DD is 22 months and still fed to sleep. I have no other way of getting her to sleep other than pushchair or car so I’m just riding it out. I figure it won’t be forever. She’s still boob obsessed although I try not to feed her when out in public as I have begun getting funny looks from people.

I had to stop bf. My ds was in his own room by this point and for weeks my dh had to do all the bedtimes and night wakings. We gave a beaker of milk at bedtime and offered water in the night (which was obviously rejected) and then just had many painful weeks of reassuring and shushing. Once my milk had dried up it was much easier for me to be involved.

Dd is 2.5 and I fed her to sleep until she was 2. She was sleep trained at 8 months for night wakings (so if she woke, we sleep trained so she always slept through). But I always initially fed her to sleep. It was really tough and eventually I began to feel quite embarrassed too.

For us, it was little changes and she gradually grew out of it. It did involve dad quite a lot because like you, she could smell me if I was about. Some evening I would go out and dad would have a cup of milk and then brush her teeth when she was half asleep. He'd rock her. Sometimes she'd have boob until she was full and I'd then switch out with dad who would rock her the last little bit. The important thing here was that I had sometime to do, for my sake, like make dinner etc., she that I didn't feel quite as awful when she cried. And in between there were nights where I'd just feed her to sleep as normal. She also spent some nights at granny's house where obviously she had a bottle of milk and was rocked to sleep, and she was always fine there - no problems, which is how we knew she COULD do it happily.

It just felt like the number of nights I fed her decreased and the number of nights she had other options decreased until the feeding stopped. I still fed her to sleep for naps and she didn't seem to get confused. But then she gave up naps at about 27 months so that wasn't a problem either. It was a slow process where there was no sudden change and we were flexible to her needs. It was the gentlest way for us and for her.

It wouldn't even cross my mind to feed her to sleep now! I think also kids do grow out of it, which is nice. Some sooner than others but they do. It all gets replaced with cups of milk and stories and cuddles.

Good luck!

I don't know how to do it either, but I hear you in that it is super hard! Hopefully someone else has the magic solution for you. All I wanted to say is please find a way out of it ASAP! My ds is now 3.5yrs old and still breastfeeds to sleep and it's at the point now he doesn't seem to know how to sleep unless I'm there. It is a nightmare and super embarassing. I usually try keep it secret but obviously not easy as I'm inevitably late to any social get together as need to be sure ds is sleeping before I leave home. I stopped working a year ago and am studying for a career change so have more time now while DH can still be tied up after work, and it's definitely got worse. There is no longer any times when ds is forced to go to bed with DH because I have something on after work and now he can't even take a nap when he is shattered without the breast! We ended up going down this route because whenever I was going out for a drink with the girls I was getting a call after 2-3 hours of DH trying to get ds to sleep to come home and bf after 2 glasses of wine or whatever, so was just easier if I got him to bed before.

So definitely do some of the things suggested by other posters. I obviously came on here to look for help for myself and will be trying some of the advice too so thanks to all who replied! Hope it's getting better for you!

hey OP, did you ever find a solution?

I am also in this predicament but baby is only 6 months. Plan is to reduce breastfeeds during the day after sleep training at 7/8 months. I cannot let this go on past a year as my job is just too demanding. If I have any more children I most likely will not breastfeed.