feeding to sleep

[loulouh1973]

Hi all, I'm having lots of guilty feelings about letting Evie (21 weeks nearly) feed to sleep. She has now decided to fight sleep during the day, so by the time it's feed time, she's exhausted and falls asleep on the breast. Also, her bedtime routine is half feed, bath, other half of feed and bed. Sometimes she will wake up briefly, then go to sleep, but more often than not, i'll put her straight down after her feed. Is this so bad? all the books say she needs a period of activity after her feed and then sleep, but I find she's then wide awake. We've been lucky as she's almost always gone throught the night (11 till 7am) from xmas night. If she wakes in the night, she does get herself back to sleep. Am I making a rod for my own back, will she expect to be fed to sleep forever or am I worrying unnecessarily? I'm confused! Anyone offer any thoughts?
Louise & Evie

[Jess&Frank]

All the books say the same thing: DO NOT allow your baby to fall asleep over a feed, always put them down AWAKE.

I reckon the people who write the books haven't had babies themselves. Either that or they only need 10 mins sleep per night.

I only found 1 book that was a little bit more pragmatic (Penelope Leach - Your baby and Child). It suggested that letting your baby fall asleep over a feed was ok during the night. I should hope so too!!

The point of this advice is that you don't want your baby to associate drinking milk with falling asleep. Babies will always get more sleepy from drinking milk - that is normal and fine. You just don't want them to NEED milk to sleep.

I think you should stop worrying. Evie clearly doesn't need milk to sleep as she can go to sleep without it - when she goes back to sleep at night and when you put her down and she is still awake.

Anyway, what's the worst that can happen? She's not going to turn to drugs because her mum let her fall asleep at the breast a few times! She might just do some crying before bedtime - I can think of worse things.

Hope this helps.

Jess (and Frank who has started waking up in the night :mad: )

[Jess&Frank]

Hi Louise

I was chatting to some mums today who said that they routinely feed their baby to sleep, not just at night but in the day too. They feed on one side sat up and then on the other side lying down so that both mum and baby can get some rest. Sounds to me like a very practical solution to being a tired mum!

J

[mumbles]

hello.

I do exactly the same thing with my 6 month old daughter. She sleeps in bed with me and i feed her, laying on my side in bed untill she falls asleep. I think its perfectly fine and after all she is a baby and needs comfort, they dont stay babies forever.

Relax xxx

[Amy&Daniel]

When I've been REALLY tired during the day, I've fed Daniel to sleep in our bed, but I've always regretted it!

I can't sleep properly when he's there! He takes up loads of room, makes snoring and grunting noises, wriggles around, and if I do get to sleep, I wake up having a terrible nightmare that I've rolled onto him and feeling all achy from sleeping in an uncomfortable position.

At the beginning, when I was really sleep deprived, I'd feed him lying down at night. But it was easier to do it sitting up because I kept falling asleep between sides when I was lying down. Or waking up in a panic that he'd rolled out of bed.

Having said all that, each to their own. I think co-sleeping works really well for some people. For me, the downsides out-weighed the pluses.

A

[loulouh1973]

thanks for your thoughts. It seems ages since I posted that thread. I'm now more relaxed about feeding to sleep, and now Evie is quite good at settling herself (like today and tonight) I only really feed her to sleep now when she's very tired, or I need to go out, or to sleep myself. I'm sure she'll get to a stage where we won't need to do it at all. (hopefully by the time I go to see Take that next week!)
Lou