How to stop feeding to sleep

[Imnotbeverley]

... If your baby won't feed at bedtime until they are sleepy?

My DS is 7 months old and an atrocious sleeper. Has always had a bedtime routine of bath, feed, bed. Is breastfed but I try to give him a bottle before bed (this is another story, I would like to stop breastfeeding but he would not!). I would estimate that he wakes between 10-15 times a night. Ends up in our bed snacking on boob to get back to sleep as and when he wants- co-sleeping isn't something I actually want to be doing.

I am dying! I crashed our car last week (no one hurt luckily), I have no quality time with my DP. I love my baby but something has to give, I am returning to work in 2 months and have a job with genuine accountability for the lives of others. I need an improvement.

Basically I am trying to stop feeding to sleep, and hoping to teach him to self settle, in the hope that learning this skill may improve the rest of the night. But he will not drink any milk, boob or bottle, until he is tired and he then falls asleep whilst doing so. While I love cuddling him and the peacefulness of this method, it surely needs to change?

I am considering trying controlled crying, but I don't feel that I can do this when I may be concerned that he is actually still hungry. IYSWIM

Any pearls of wisdom?

[Haribolover]

Could you try feeding and then putting to sleep dopey so he learns to self settle. We did by feeding then putting in grobag which woke DD up a little. We can at least some days get her to self settle from awake.

[minipie]

Right, if you are the level of crashing your car then IMO teaching your baby to sleep better is urgent and justifies a bit of crying if necessary.

10-15 wake ups and constantly on the boob suggests to me he has a massive "need boob to sleep" association. So if you can teach self settling then yes you should see a big improvement hopefully.

Can you still give him bedtime feed as usual but pull him off the boob before he's completely asleep? (You may need to tickle him, blow in him etc while feeding to stop him falling asleep). Then try putting him down? I know he will probably wake up and yell to have his boob back. That's where the controlled crying comes in. But at least you'll be confident he's reasonably full.

How much does he eat by way of solids? if he's eating plenty then that should also give you confidence he's not hungry.

If you want to get him off the boob I wouldn't start with the bedtime feed - that's usually the hardest one to swap over - try a mid morning feed instead.

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

Have you tried the no cry sleep solution by Elizabeth Pantley? Its. Very good

[LittleRedDinosaur]

DD was similar but not as bad. I started doing last feed downstairs and then going to her room for bed so feeding stopped being associated with sleep. Then did everything else to get her to sleep- rocking, singing, cuddling, stroking. She would eventually sleep
At night I'd agree I wouldn't feed her til a certain time and repeat the rocking/cuddling etc.
Hell for a week then could start to drop night feeds then eventually fixed.

[Imnotbeverley]

Thanks for the replies, they make me feel better about trying to improve things.

He eats pretty well, we started weaning slightly early in an attempt to improve his sleep so he's well established on 3 meals a day. He has days of not being as interested in eating but on whole, it's good.

I need to find the energy to maintain a method throughout the night- the problem is that I do it on autopilot. I often don't remember getting up and I'll just wake up on the sofa in his room or similar. It can't be safe to be so tired, I need to get DP to help (he is supportive and will if I ask), but he doesn't wake up when Ted does.

[Jemimapuddleduk]

I know they aren't everyone's cup of tea but would you consider a dummy? This really helped our dd self settle.

[DaniAlvez]

This was me 3 months ago. I crashed my car with DD in the back and I knew I had to sort the sleep situation out before one of us came to any harm. Did controlled crying, all through the night as well at all wake ups. Took a week but she now sleeps 7pm till 5 am every night with no wake ups at all. I still feed her to sleep at bedtime but she doesn't wake at night. If you're so tired you're crashing the car, it's time for drastic measures!

[Imnotbeverley]

dani were you previously feeding frequently through the night? I'm worried that suddenly stopping this could be too much, although I do realise that many babies don't need to feed at night. Is it too harsh to suddenly stop doing this?

I've started controlled crying, he seems to be responding/working it out pretty quickly (11 mins of crying at bedtime, has woken twice since and gone back to sleep within 5 minutes each time), but I am finding it just so so sad. Lots of tears!

[CityDweller]

I taught (or maybe it was just developmental anyway) DD to self-settle thusly at about 6 mo:

I continued with our bedtime feed, but kept the lights on and didn't put her in her sleeping bag. Once feed was over I would then zip her into sleeping bag. This sometimes involved waking her up if she'd fallen asleep on boob (but I tried my hardest to keep her awake by blowing on her face, tickling her feet, coughing frequently, etc). Then lights off, into cot and I spent about a week doing an ad-hoc version of sshh-pat and gradual retreat. She was self-settling within about a week to ten days. I look back on the time I spent hiding underneath her cot, ready to pop up and ssshh-pat as necessary, as an investment!

There were frequent relapses over the next few months, though, but I tried to revert to sshh-pat (rather than feeding to sleep) in those situations.

[MyPantsAreGreen]

I was inspired by this thread to stop feeding my 14 month old to sleep. The thought of being in that endless cycle of boob in mouth cat naps while my two eldest are off school for the summer was too hellish. I sat with the poor man cuddling and sshh patting through the cot bars and Voila! He is cured! I do wait until I spot tired signs before starting as forcing him to have a nap when he doesn't want one did not work at all. I can't believe it's worked so fast and I could have avoided a lot of misery of the last few months. Please keep going to all those struggling with this it is worth the pain.

[Jonkastique]

Op it all sounds pretty miserable and def not safe!

Could you try feeding him (and in your case he'll fall asleep because he's sleepy when he starts feeding) and when he falls asleep gently wake him up? I've been doing PUPD and my lo is responding well.

I was sceptical that this technique would work, but i'm really glad I tried it. I didn't have anything to lose tbh.

Good luck and be careful behind the wheel!

[ShineSmile]

OP, why do you think he is waking up so many times?

We had the same with my DD at that age, and as soon as we removed all the allergens from her diet, the night awakenings and crying decreased dramatically.

[Imnotbeverley]

Thanks for all the replies.

We have been doing gradual retreat for the last week, with some big improvements. Including one sleeping through the night! Yippee! We can now put him down for naps or bedtime and give him a kiss and he goes off to sleep within a minute or two.

Problem I am having now is that when he wakes up after I have gone to sleep, I go like a robot into his room and bring him into our bed and feed him to sleep (and over and over throughout the night). I have woken up a few times and not remembered getting him, just finding him there. I'm sure I'm confusing him and preventing him from learning to sleep all night. But what to do??

[missknows]

Maybe put something in between your rooms to wake you up/trip you over so you don't do this?

Well done though, you have given me hope having just started a very similar thread!