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Falling asleep on the boob...
I know I know I know, every 'expert' says this is the worst thing you can do as your baby will only be able to sleep after a feed and will never be able to self settle, but my willpower disappears when it's 3am and it is SO much easier to let Sam fall asleep at the end of a feed and be put into cot asleep.
How do the rest of you find the strength not to do this?! Any tips? Sam is still not sleeping more than 3 hours at a time (he's 14 weeks) and I'm probably to blame. He has been known to self settle very occasionally...
How do the rest of you find the strength not to do this?! Any tips? Sam is still not sleeping more than 3 hours at a time (he's 14 weeks) and I'm probably to blame. He has been known to self settle very occasionally...
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BUT I did want to say that it hasn't affected my LO's ability to settle herself - she's settled herself at bedtime and for naps very reliably since about 5-6 months. So even if you do carry on letting him fall asleep on the boob, it doesn't have to mean the worst!
Hope someone has some tips if it's really not a habit you want to keep up.
ps - PinkToothbrush I emailed about these matters a couple of days ago - not sure if you got it? Feel free to ignore, just needed some reassurance!
xx
Aarghh it did, straight into my spam! Just replying now!
Anyone else have any tips or advice? xx
My giant bubba is on the 98th centile (she is 14+3) and I also let her go to sleep on the boob every time. I even pop her on for 5 minutes if she is tired and wants to go for a nap which Im sure the 'experts' would be horrified by but its a quick and easy way of getting her to sleep! She won't take a dummy.
With regards to sleeping through, she now goes 5-6.5 hours in one stretch and only feeds for 10-20 mins in the night so maybe sam just likes the comfort.
Also I dont put her to bed in the evening - I just take her to bed with me around 10pm or earlier if shes grumpy so she spends the evening feeding to fill up her little tummy. So thats double bad mummy points for me!
Tilly is now a big baby and is between 75th and 91st (she was born a little early and started on the 25th)
I'm mixed feeding as you know so try to give her a bottle of formula last thing (she wakes every 3 hours if she doesn't have it) but she only takes 3oz then goes for the boob. Because the last feed of the night is done in bed she always falls asleep on the boob.
Sometimes she wakes when I put her into the cot, has a look around then goes back to sleep.
She self settles in the day so I don't have a problem feeding her til she falls asleep at night.
If it doesn't bother you then carry on
Throw the books away lol!
xxx
What did I do? Well, I preferred to avoid the whole controlled crying system, and chose to try a gentler but more time-consuming method. I did a bedtime routine for him that ended with a breastfeed where he was not allowed to fall asleep (as soon as he seemed like he was dropping off I broke the suction. If he complained he could go back on, but only for a few sucks and then I tried again until he had had enough but was still awake). Then I burped him, read him a quick story (Appley Dapply every night!), stood up and sang him a lullaby while rocking him on my shoulder and then put him into his cot awake. Then I would sit beside him stroking him and making soothing noises as needed until he fell asleep. The first few times this took quite a while and sometimes he would get upset. If he properly cried I took him out of the cot for a cuddle to calm him down and then put him back to try again. Some days he wasn't having any of it and I ended up rocking him to sleep and putting him down asleep, but hey ho. The first night I tried this method he only woke once in the night!
Jason was 5 and a half months when we started this, so I was also keen for him to feed less at night in the hopes he might actually sleep through. It might be a bit early to try this part with a 14 week baby, but what we did was if he woke before we went to bed we would just try and comfort him and help him settle back to sleep in his cot. After that I fed him just 5 mins for 2 nights and then 3 mins for 2 nights and then not at all every time he woke. The idea was to try and get him used to being asleep without a full stomach. Instead we settled him just like at the beginning of the night. However, more recently, he has started waking again regularly at 4-5am so I am now giving him a feed then for as long as he wants before putting him back into his cot, which he accepts very happily.
During the day, I also put him down for naps in a very similar way - rock and hum a lullaby then down into the cot and sit beside him while he fell asleep. I started to feed him as soon as he woke up instead of just before he went to sleep.
As the days passed he has wanted less and less help/interference with settling himself to sleep. I gradually stopped touching him and shhing or saying "there there" or whatever to comfort him and instead just sat there quietly. Now I have started moving the place I sit further away from the cot-side so that he is less aware of my presence. I'm thinking about leaving the room before he falls asleep soon!
Since he was used to sucking himself to sleep on my boob, he desperately wanted something to suck for comfort. We have never given him a dummy so what he chose to do was to suck on a muslin instead. At first he used to try and cram as much into his mouth as possible, but now he seems to just suck his thumb through the cloth.
Anyway, that turned into an essay! I hope some of it helps
I am having real trouble with this at the moment. Emerson goes to sleep ok at 7 pm and we get about 4 hours out of him, but after that he is up every 1.5-2 hours. Like you, I just stick him on the boob till he falls back to sleep. This has been going on for weeks now and I am sure he should be able to go for longer without being fed, but, how do you know? He does latch on and feed - sometimes for a while, sometimes for a few minutes and so I have been toying with the idea of letting him cry it out but how can you tell if it is genuine hunger or he just wants the comfort?
Plus, it is quite hard to not let him fall asleep when feeding. Even if I tap him or shake him (gently!) sometimes he is just fast asleep.
I let my dd fall asleep on the boob for about 15 months - no joke !! She always slept all the way through at night time and I used it to get her to nap in the afternoon too.I know its very lazy extra but to be honest it just felt incredibly natural.
She is a better sleeper than my ds who was ff so I think it just depends on the baby etc..
Once I stopped breastfeeding she soon settled herself to sleep - I just changed her routine so that she has storys in bed and then I sit at the bottom of her bed for 10 mins and she is fine xx
Do what you feel is right