Made a mess of everything

[SquashPenguin]

My 7 month old will only feed to sleep. She will only fall asleep with a bottle at night and with a bottle every time she wakes up (which is currently three times a night). I feel like I have totally fucked everything up and created awful habits for her. I am so sleep deprived. We share night feeds but I often do more as he won't wake up as quickly as I do.

I've tried to discuss how we break this habit but I think my partner just wants the fastest option of getting her back to sleep there and then which it's feeding.

She will usually finish her 5oz bottles each time, so she must have room for that much milk! I'm at my wits end. I return to work from mat leave this week too. Everyone I've mentioned this too is surprised a 7mo feeds this much and I know it's our fault 😔 How can I get her to self soothe back to sleep? Daytime naps have the same problem!

You can't expect a 7 month old baby to self-soothe back to sleep she is still way too young and dependent on you. Her milk intake sounds normal and so does her feeding routine. I understand the sleepless and late nights can be so debilitating and tiring but one thing that got me through those was knowing that eventually, it would all come to an end. It feels like things will never change but I promise they do and the day comes where sleep isn't such an alien concept. You're doing a great job! Well done 💐

All her baby friends the same age are sleeping through, everyone I seem to speak to reacts like feeding this often isn't normal. I just feel physically sick I'm so tired. She has easily 35oz of milk during the day on top of solids.

On top of that she moves about so much at night she will wake herself up needlessly by bumping into all 4 sides of her cot. My partner wants to get cot bumpers which I won't allow, but it's driving me insane!

Mine fed to sleep until he was 18 months old! Otherwise it was hours of trying to settle him. You’ve got a baby that sleeps and you know how to do it, so keep going? Far too young to self soothe I’m afraid.

we all wake in our sleep and self sooth, your baby is waking but can’t self sooth so needs her bottle as that’s what she needs to get off to sleep.

easy for me to say but if you swap the bottle for something else, baby will use that for going to sleep

do you use white noise? Rocket? Do you ever put baby in the cot or pram and then rocket or use white noise to get to sleep?

Whilst a baby of 7 months might not be able to self sooth, that doesn’t mean the self sooth only has to be one prop - a bottle

Dont be so hard on yourself, you havent screwed anything up, you have just been a responsive loving parent.
Returning to work now adds pressure and is making it all feel too big.

when my boy was 10months, he was waking plenty and i also wanted to stop the feed to sleep association, so i stopped feeding to sleep in the day and fed after nap times only and then started gentle PUPD sleep training for the nights which actually caused him to drop a feed. I carried on feeding to sleep for night wake ups tho to get max sleep and he stopped when i day weaned at 13months.. 7 months is still young but have heard ppl do PUPD from 6 months so you could try it while you have the time.