Feeding to sleep/night wakings - SOS!

[RhubarbRocks]

My six month old likes to feed to sleep.

It took me a long time (and ten weeks of triple feeding) to establish breastfeeding, so when it did finally work it was like I had a magic way of soothing him and happily fed him to sleep every night snd for naps. I didn’t think ahead to the problem I have created…

He is now totally reliant on feeding to sleep and is waking up every 90 mins or so in the night (often even more often). He won’t nap for more than 30 mins without feeding and resettling. He doesn’t even feed much when he wakes, just likes to suck to go back to sleep.

i have tried for several days to get a gap between feeding and sleeping but he just goes from zero to 100 and will cry and cry - the longest I let him cry (holding him) was 90 mins before I gave in and let him suckle - he sucked 5 times and fell asleep.

The Huckleberry app suggests introducing a dummy instead of feeding to sleep (and feeding another time I guess). But is that out of the frying pan into the fire?

I do love the ability to soothe him and the closeness it brings but I can’t manage any longer with waking up every hour or so through the night - my autoimmune condition has flared badly and I’ve already been put on steroids and I’m worried I’ll wind up in hospital if I don’t get better sleep to recover.

Any advice greatly appreciated!!

I didn't like the idea of a dummy, but for the sake of you all getting some sleep it's well worth it. I breastfeed bub, then hand her the dummy and a small muslin (she likes to rub it on her face to get to sleep). Once she's asleep I extract the muslin, and we're usually good til morning then. She's almost 6mo and usually sleeps a good 9-10hr stretch, has done for months now. At first she'd wake up a few times, and we'd just see if the dummy got her back to sleep within 5mins and if not another feed. She only has the dummy at bedtime, and I guess we'll have to take it away at some point, but honestly I don't think I'd cope waking up as often as you describe - I'd definitely give it a go!

tbh I wouldn’t beat yourself up about it, you haven’t created a problem, you just have a baby who settles for a natural sleep inducing substance!

For daytime naps - is there anything else that will send him to sleep? Like maybe a walk in the pushchair, drive in the car or wandering around with him in a sling? If so you could try feeding him as soon as he wakes up, then changing nappy etc and then going for a wander before he is overtired and looking for milk.

at night try everything else before milk - physical contact/cuddles, singing, rocking, handing to partner etc before you move to feeding. Also try ‘habit stacking’ to move towards settling without the boob.

A dummy worked well for me with DS2 who was a very "sucky" baby. Yes you have the problem of eventually weaning him off it, but worth it for the time between now and then!

I think you have a small window to try dummies. The other alternative is the baby finds their hand to self soothe. The positive about a dummy is that you can eventually throw it away, you can’t do that with their hand and I think it’s harder to break that routine. The downside to a dummy is it might keep falling out, the hand they keep finding straight away. My daughter is 4.5 months and for the last two months has self soothed with her hand. It’s really nice that she doesnt instantly cry now but equally I think later down the line it’s going to be hard work.

Thanks for the advice. My husband tried to give him a dummy this morning while I went to another room, but he spat it out. We will try again later (need something to work as I got a total of 2 hours sleep last night as now he won’t even co-sleep, just wants to be held, and only by me).

One question on dummies - how do you know when in the night to give a dummy v him genuinely needing a feed? I feel I should know this but I don’t!

If we can’t fix this soon I think I’ll need to get someone in to help - we could afford to do that I think and I am just on my knees now. I’m not sure who to get though or whether I could really face letting him cry with a stranger.

Sending solidarity I'm right there with my 5mo waking every 30 - 50mins. Using huckleberry as well but reading just chill mama sleep book it also suggests habit stacking like patting their bum or shushing whilst feeding to sleep then moving through each night to eventually shushing or patting in the cot then not needing anything.
Wish it felt as simple as it sounds on paper, my LO fell asleep on the boob tonight before even finished getting her ready. She's been awake 5 times since 7.50.
Hope you are ok!

Have you started weaning onto solids yet?

I am also in same predicament.
Started solids and may have helped a little but not enough.
I will be resortinh to sleep training. Gentle first but if that doesn't work Ferber and/or extinction.