baby needs breast to fall asleep at 6 months

[ticklebucket]

I know that I brought this one upon myself to some extent - I was warned - but if anyone can advise what to do now we would all be very grateful!
Unfortunately I have never produced large quantities of breast milk and this resulted in very long feeds - at the beginning this used to be as much as 3 hours! My baby got accustomed to falling asleep on the breast. My partner is able to rock him to sleep after a bottle but we are unable to put him down awake. In the daytime he only sleeps in our arms or in the pushchair. I have tried to put him down after he is well fed and calm, but after playing by himself for a while, he soon becomes agitated. I have tried the cry down method (i think its called) where you pick them up soothe them and put them down again but this ends up after about 45 minutes to an hour with him screaming before his head has hit the mattress! I've tried this quite a few times but it just seems to take a long time and always ends up with me having to breast feed him to sleep at the end of it all. I don't think I could do the controlled crying method - he just seems too little and he doesn't seem to know what he is doing. Sometimes when I put him down in his cot he starts searching for the breast with his mouth in a desperate way.

all advice would be very welcome.
thanks

Hi. My DS would only nap on me for the first few months, then would only nap if put down after falling asleep on the breast. At around 7 or 8 months, he started fussing at the breast and in the end I just put him down fussy. If he didn't settle after 5 minutes, I'd go back and try feeding him again. It got to the point when he'd cry for 5-10 minutes then sleep. I think the fussing was his way of tell me that he just wanted to nap without feeding to sleep.

I think it's a case of keep trying (over days/weeks rather than in one day) to put him down to sleep. If he doesn't settle after 5 minutes, go back to what you normally do. He'll get it eventually.

Don't worry about controlled crying. I can't do it with DS. His sleeping habits slowly change over time and I'm sure he'll eventually sleep through.

I think we all have too high expectations of babies and sleep. We've all heard about ones who slept through from day one and it's hard when ours don't, but they're all different!

Possibly not what you want to hear, but I would stick with feeding to sleep for now, and give it a go again in a month or so. - If you've been trying to settle him but always end up giving him a BF, then he may be getting mixed messages and think that he has to cry for you to feed him, which it sounds like you don't want him to think. - Feeding to sleep is totally natural anyway, the hormones are designed to send both mother and baby to sleep, so if it works for now, then go with it. Maybe you could try to move away from him sleeping in your arms, by using the pushchair for all his naps for a week or so, and maybe see if you can move to getting him to nap in the pushchair in the house once he's used to this?

FWIW, DD is 9 months and still feeds to sleep too - she also does the searching for the breast when she goes in the cot, sort of looking over her shoulder, mouth open. What I've done is settle into a pattern of her feeds timed just before her naps now, - not a great sleeper and a toddler running around determined to keep his little sister awake have meant my nerves were shot, so in the end I just went with what I knew would work. Some days it's hit and miss if she'll settle in the cot, but I've kept it consistent every day (unless we're out, but then it's now so much a problem anyway), upstairs when she seems sleepy (tricky as the timings change every day!) nappy change, into 0.5 tog gro-bag, BF, then into cot. I keep thinking that eventually she'll start going in more awake, and getting used to settling herself.

One thing that did help is she goes in on her side now that she can roll, she's much happier sleeping like this. If you think the pushchair might work for you, then work out a little pre-nap routine and stick with it. The same with the cot, if you'd rather he nap in the cot, then do the same thing every time, even if it includes feeding to sleep at the end. Being consistent really does help. good luck.

Been there, done that .

It is exhausting, but remind yourself it will NOT last forever, whatever you do.

I found The NO Cry Sleep Solution very helpful, particularly with older babies ie over 6 months.
He will learn to self-soothe. Don't worry too much about it. For all 3 of mine, this settled somewhere between 6 and 12 months.
TBH, I found it much easier to feed them back to sleep than to finght it out repeatedly in the middle of the night.

Couldn't do CC either.

Don't sleep train him because others might think you should. Sorry, I do not mean to be presumptious, but I know I had a lot of well-meaning family members/friends say "What? He is not sleeping through yet?" as if this was some kind of Holy Grail of baby care .

Your DS is very unlikely to want your breast forever and at 6 months he is still tiny.

yes, agree with pacificdogwood, I found NCSS useful - if nothing else, she makes you feel better about the choices you've made.

DS was exactly the same at that age.

We didn't want to / couldn't do CC.

He started to go into his cot sleepily awake at about 10-12 months and has gone down quite happily for a naps without milk for DP, grandparents and carers at nursery since then.

Now at 18 months if I'm there I still bf for nap and at bedtime, although he has and will go down happily with a story and drink of milk from a cup for others if I'm not there.

If you are happy to carry on why not do so?

IMHO it's such a short period of time in the general scheme of things and a time to be treasured.
I think they all settle into the sleep thing eventually - some sooner than others

Thank you all for your helpful replies. Its great just to hear that others have had similar experiences. I think I might try the pushchair nap as a routine as I can see that this might work for daytime and get him accustomed to falling asleep on his own. A couple of times he has fallen asleep in the pushchair before we left the house and we have stayed in while he slept giving me a chance to do some of the 101 things I need to do!

When sleep training mine I had to be consistent and keep at it for several days. If you give up and give the feed in the end, the sleep training won't work tbh. Sorry.

I agree with katechristie first paragraph and pacificdogwood too.

Go back to soothing to sleep for now I think and maybe try a fading approach in due course where you reduce efforts overtime perhaps, if things are still problematic?

You need a break from the stress of this though and then try again in my opinion...

Agree with the others that he is still tiny. I read the other day that babies don't learn to self-soothe until 2 or 3 (which made me feel better about mine!). Like kate says, it's completely natural to fall asleep at the breast. If you are happy to carry on then just do it and try not to worry about it (I know it's hard not to when everyone is banging on about creating a rod for your own back etc ). DD is nearly 16 months and still feeds to sleep for naps when I'm there, but copes without me if I'm not. In the evenings now I give her a feed then DH goes in and cuddles her to sleep (feeding to sleep doesn't work for us any more - and I've gone from worrying we'd never break the habit to wishing it still worked!).