Do kids grow out of "suck to sleep" association or do they need to be trained out of it.

[Thandeka]

Am quite happy to feed DD to sleep as is fastest way for everyone to get more sleep (otherwise is minimum 30mins bouncing in hammock or bouncer or walking in pram for entire duration of nap (no good at nighttime obv!), or about 2-3 exhausted hours screaming whether we are there cuddling/shh patting or not.

She is 20weeks so still very little and am quite happy to feed to sleep for time being, but just wondering if it's something they grow out of eventually (when!?) or whether we will need to train her out of it at some point in the future. Also her suck to sleep association is probably getting further embedded at mo as she is waking a lot in the night at mo and am sooo exhausted is quickest to just plonk her on the boob and go back to sleep rather than try and settle her in other ways. And daytime naps I am finding I am feeding her too sleep more often too then as I am soooo tired (she has been waking every 40mins last couple nights because of the heat) so I don't have the energy to bounce her or take her for a walk til she falls asleep!

Obviously I would eventually like her to self settle but is this something babies can just learn anyhow or does it have to be taught?

Hi Thandeka

I have the same situation and a baby of almost exactly the same age.

In the sleep webchat chinook asked more or less the same question and Helen Ball said (essentially), yes they do grow out of it after a while without us necessarily having to do anything about it.

I guess it's how quickly you want them to grow out of it that determines whether you go down the training route in some respect, or just let them keep feeding to sleep until they naturally stop doing it.

I'd be grateful for it! My 10 mo DD has recently started to end her feed before she's sleepy enough, which means ages of walking, rocking, singing, letting her pinch my arm, till she drops off. So in my case, yes, she seems to have grown out of it with no 'training' on my part.

The arm-pinching method is a new one on me!

So I'm guessing you kind of wish DD still would feed-to-sleep, belindarose?!

Yes, I wish she would! She gets a little glint in her eye and pulls off to start chatting and begin her inflict-pain-on-mummy routine. She didn't feed to sleep as a little baby, but had been for the last couple of months. I much preferred being confident that she'd drop off within 10 minutes of beginning the feed (night time only, by the way. Daytime feeds provide instant energy and she rolls off and 'runs' away). The last few nights, even middle of the night feeds haven't resulted in dropping off to sleep.
The arm pinching REALLY hurt on mildly sunburnt arms!