Feeding to Sleep

For those that do/have done, at what point did it stop working, and what did you do instead?


DS has been fed to sleep for every sleep/nap since he was born (apart from when he sleeps in the manduca) and as I sit here cradling him as he nurses and goes to sleep I started to wonder wht I would do when either, it stops working, or he decides to wean.

From what I've heard, if he decides to wean himself, he'll do it as he learns to stop feeding to sleep. It won't be for some time yet though

For us, it stopped working (although she's been doing it again recently); so when she started fussing at the breast, I'd stand up, pull my top down and make sure it was a high-neck, hard-to-get-into top, and hold her up on my shoulder and walk/sing. I used the same song that I'd sing to her when she was feeding to sleep (I'd been trying to build multiple sleep associations) and she'd usually grizzle a bit, and sometimes shriek, but if I remained gentle and calm and kept walking/rocking/singing to her, she'd be asleep usually within 2 minutes. After a few weeks of that, she'd just accept that when I stood up and started walking, she'd lay her head on my shoulder and it still took a few minutes (sometimes up to 10) to nod off but there was no grizzling.

These days she goes down for her naps without a feed, and that just involves a cuddle and a song (or 5!).

I'm hoping eventually she'll get interested in stories, so I can sit/lie in bed with her and read to her and she'll just listen till she nods off. Might be a bit optimistic though, as we can't even get through one tiny story atm!

DD is so reliant on me DP and I had our first proper night out (ok it was only from 7-10.30pm but...) and left her with her grandma and she just fed her dinner, bathed her, gave her a bottle of warm cows milk and she eventually nodded off in grandma's arms so I think having the routine bit the same helps and MIL said she did try to fight going to sleep for about 30 odd minutes and then crashed for about 4-5 hours which is longer than she ever does for me! *hmph*!

He grew out of it on his own with no input from us before it stopped working.

He was still being fed in the night though until he was fully night weaned at 11 months. While we were in the process of night weaning we'd do other things like rocking/shusshing/patting but he stopped needing even that at 13 months...and even when we were doing that we rarely did it until he was actually asleep; just enough so that he was settled enough to be put back to bed. We've also had periods where we've had to sit with him for a bit, but nothing too horrible.