How do stop feeding her to sleep?

My daughter is now 7 mths old and since the day she has born she's been a terrible sleeper. She's always woken 3-4 times every night and I have always fed her back to sleep as that was the quickest and easiest way.
She's also been sleeping in a hammock since 1 mth old

I've now decided to take her out of the hammock as she was always wanting to be rocked and continually woke and expected to be rocked back to sleep.
So I've started to put her in her cot, she wont' sleep very well in the day and still wakes up often at night.

I've realised the issue is that I've been feeding her to sleep and now she can't go to sleep without being fed.

I'm now exhausted and in need of some desperate help. I really don't know where to start but I need to put a stop to this now as I can't continue getting up so often every night to her.

Who has been through the same thing and where did you start. Tonight she has woken and I fed her and tried to put her down but she cried and jsut wanted to be fed some more. Everytime I tried to put her down she cried. So DH is in there with her now trying to get her to sleep. He said she is looking around for me and is hysterical, this is so hard, I really don't know what to do. I jsut want to go in there and feed her and comfort her.

I've had a similar issue, I wasn't feeding him to sleep for every sleep but for some reason since about 4 months he was 'needing' to be fed to sleep for his night-time bed time. He was still self settling fine during the day, and in the middle of the night after a feed, but he had started waking more often at night so I figured because he was being fed to sleep for that one feed he'd decided he needed boobie when he really doesn't. So I decided to tough it out and stop doing it at night.

I tried controlled crying for a few nights but it just didn't work for us (odd because it worked fine to teach him to self settle in the first place). So I just did it my way, it's not advocated by any book that I know of, but it's working for us.

It's been a gradual process, the first night I did it I put him down maybe 98% asleep IYKWIM. The next night it was 95% and so on - it's only been a week but now I can put him down when he's drowsy but his eyes are still fully open. And I've been rewarded with fewer night wakings - the last 3 nights he's only woken once (compared to 3 or 4 wakings in the couple of weeks before).

The way I started to do it was, I waited until his eyes were starting to close and I'd use my little finger to break the seal and see if he was happy to be drowsy in my arms without nursing. If he started fussing I let him go back on the boob. It took maybe 3 goes he first night until he was happy to lie there. I waited for a little while til his eyes started closing again and then I put him down, saying "it's time to sleep", and crept away. (I know he's still too little for what I actually say to make a difference but I figure if I keep doing it, it might come in handy later on - Haylie is probably old enough for that to work if you're consistent.)

Yikes sorry for the novel!

Thanks so much for your replys
I've tried giving her a dummy at different times since born, but she just won't take it. Now she just plays with it.
And the other thing, she will not take a bottle at all. She completely refuses to take it. Iv'e tried everything to get her to take it.

weegee I'm pleased to hear things seem to be improving for you, I think I'll give your idea a go.

Emma, unfortunately thats how Haylie started. She never wanted to be bed to sleep in the day but I always jsut fed her in the night when she woke cos it was easier and I was so tired. I think thats where the problems started

so we let her cry for about 30 mins, DH stayed with ehr and kept picking her up and putting back down. I ended up going in and feeding her cos I couldn't stand to hear her so upset. She was sobbing the poor wee girl
So I fed her and she went to sleep, I put her down and walked out, 2 mins later she started crying.
I went back in and decided to try something different, I turned her on her side and patted her back and she calmed down and went to sleep.

So we are going to stick at it and try this again tomorrow night, I'll get DH to stay with her a while and then I'll go it.
I still havent' thought about what I'm going to do tonight when she wakes lol I will really want to feed her so I can get back to sleep but I need to be strong don't I

Yay! Hope she stays that way! Mine is in a safety sleep so no monkeying around the cot for her!

I soooo hear you on feeding them to sleep coz it's the fastest solution but unfortunately that was the start of the road that led the gremlins to our bed . I am so scared of it happening again!

This is what I did when DS started waking at 4-5 months with teething (note: I am currently not doing this as DH is away and I can't be arsed dealing with him on my own )

When she wakes, leave her to see what sort of cry. Is it attention seeking (the yelling sort of cry) or hysterics? I always left Jack if it was the former, and waited 20-30 mins before going in. If it's hysterics, then (and make sure everythings prepared before entering the room (bottles made up etc) otherwise they can lose the plot):
-check nappy and change if needed
-give water (warm) in a bottle. Start with diluted milk if need be and gradually keep diluting. DS in his drowsy state always noticed it was water and when he learnt that was all he was getting he wouldn't drink much and go back to sleep. Enough to give their tummies that full-ish feeling but you're not falling into the feeding trap.
-have a wee kiss and cuddle, then back in bed, music on if needed, comfort toy and blankie (we have both that need to go everywhere lol), and I walk out.

It took a while for Jack to stop doing the waking and feeding thing, but afterwards I would hear him wake, make a few noises, then when he realised he wouldn't get anything he just went back to sleep. In theory it works well but we have teeth coming through at the moment so its anyone's guess as to what's going to happen each night!

Thanks Emz, I think I'll have to give that a go tonight.
Its so hard, feeding her to sleep has been so easy and I really do enjoy it. But the waking I don't enjoy.

Last night she woke another 3 times. I fed her each time as I really didn't know what else to do.

What about the day sleeps, I always just feed her and put her down and she'll sleep for 40 mins - 3 hours. I don't know how to get her to sleep without feeding first.

I still wrap her too, I've found that if I put her in the cot not wrapped she thinks its plaay time. Also she throws her arms and legs around and just wont go to sleep

Edited by MelandBri

Great, Thanks for that thread Flissty, theres some really useful information on there.

Hey, i do that with DD feed her before her sleep and then pop her down awake, she is a good sleeper, sometimes she wont settle and wants to be fed to sleep but othertimes she is quite happy cause she is full, she is 6mths and is wakeing once or twice in the night, but has been since about 3mths old (which was before i used to feed before her sleeps). Plunket said that it was no prob as long as your putting them down awake so they self settle. I think every bub is different though.

First and Maree, I do agree every baby is different but agree with plunket that they do need to learn to self settle.

I tend to do a kindof eat-play-sleep routine. The books I've read (and there have been many read out of desperation ) seem all pretty consistent about not wanting to feed to sleep. One argument is that once they grow more and get more to the 3 meals a day pattern, the meals are *usually* away from sleep time - e.g breakfast is eaten after waking up, you don't fall asleep while eating lunch and dinner (well, maybe you do?!), so you want to be establishing babies getting used to eating being something you do when you are awake and interacting.

That said, when I was having big sleep battles with Daniel, I appreciated all the people who said do what you need to do, they *won't* still need to be BF to go to sleep when they're 18, they will get there. And I do find that Daniel is just doing things when he is ready (e.g. suddenly started sleeping through the night from a normal pattern of having 2 feeds/night) - nothing I did made that happen - it was just him.

I also found the Sleep Store articles really helpful, as well as reviewing some of the Q and A's from Alex Bartle (on this website under "Ask an Expert"). I think there can be a lot of pressure/guilt that you *have* to get your baby sleeping through the night and sleeping well through the day by themselves, but at the end of the day, they are their own stubborn beings. They do sometimes need help from their parents though!

Yes the gentle removal approach is working for me too though last night for his bed time feed it was a little back and forwards but you can't expect it all to happen in one night. I am doing it through the day too and he doesn't seem to mind at all.