4 month old nursing to sleep & fidgety *help!*

[Guyka]

Please help! my 4 month old is mainly breastfed and will only nurse to sleep. I know its my fault but i've always nursed her to sleep to avoid the hours of screaming that would occur if i didn't. She will not take a dummy (beleive me i've tried on many occasions) Once she's asleep of a night i'll place her in her cot next to our bed. she was going for 6 hours in one stretch about 1 month ago but now she can barely reach the 3 hour mark. She also fidgets all night long (possibly wind, possibly teeth, i have no idea why) and if not nursed she will wake up and start screaming. once she wakes i tend to bring her into my bed, feed her and mostly i end up falling asleep myself as its the only way i would ever get any rest!I've tried the 'leave to cry' method and lasted about 30 minutes and ended up crying more than she did, i've tried the controlled crying method but she just wont give up and gets herself into such a state until she's nursed. i feel so helpless! i need sleep, any suggestions would be welcome ! thank you.

This sounds like my DS (16 weeks). He was always nursed to sleep each night, and liked to nap in my arms during the day. But I found it was harder and harder to get him into his cot without him waking up and screaming blue murder each night, I think they get to be lighter sleepers as they get older!
We bit the bullet in the end and did shush pat, with him swaddled, and now he falls asleep in his cot which means when he wakes up in the middle of the night he is the same place he fell asleep so is relaxed and tends to be talkative rather than screaming - a big improvement!
However just recently he is now waking up more than he used to. I think this is because he's no longer feeding so well in the day - he gets distracted and doesn't feed for half as long as he used to - which combined with teething and the change to the big cot, means he's waking up more. Think it's called the four month sleep regression and is really common!
As for the nursing to sleep thing, I thought I'd left it too late to change too, but it took one week, the beginning of which was a 'mare but by Wednesday he'd got the knack. The baby whisperer website gave me all the instructions I needed - if you're interested - and I too couldn't face controlled crying or any of that hideous stuff.
Good luck!

Just bumping, you sound like you need some advice, I have none but some one may be along soon!

Hi there,

No advice but a bunch of us on the br/bottle feeding topic struggling with 4mo fussy feeder/non sleepers etc.

Join us!

Good luck!

See here