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nursing to sleep
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Anonymous
| at what age did you stop and how did you go about doing it? is it a bad habit if i don't plan to wean for many more months? |
Shopmom
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| Once your baby is about 5 months and weighs 15 pounds, they are able to sleep through the night without waking for a feeding...granted they're receiving enough milk during the day. You should consult your lactation consultant as your weaning. This website is great for after you've weaned at night www.mybabysleepsatnight.com |
Anonymous
| How could anything that gives you both pleasure be a bad thing? My 10.5 month old still nurses to sleep and I honestly enjoy the time. I know we won't always have this special time and I'm just trying to treasure it. |
Anonymous
| 15:18, that is crazy talk. Seriously. There is no weight limit on when a child "should" sleep through the night. |
Anonymous
| 17 months and we still do it and love it. I'd think twice about listening to the website above. We listen to to many other people these days. LIsten to your child and your own insticts. If you want to stop doing it, stop. But if not, don't. |
Anonymous
|
I nursed my baby to sleep until we decided to sleep train at 1 year old. If you do it every night, as I did, it can create a sleep association--your baby gets used to falling asleep in this particular way, and it's the only way he wants to fall asleep. This means that if someone else needs to put him to bed, or you decide to wean, your baby will protest the change in routine because he likes nursing to sleep.
We decided it was better to deal with the protest later, when we were beginning weaning, than to worry about it at the time. If you would rather not do what we did, you could try getting your baby to sleep in a variety of different ways so that he doesn't get used to one. |
Anonymous
|
Nursing to sleep is only a problem if the baby won't go to sleep without you, meaning a bottle from someone else, or it causes them to wake up at night when you are no longer interested in getting up at night.
If you enjoy it and you have no problem with other people putting the baby to sleep in other ways, there is no problem. |
Anonymous
|
I agree there's nothing wrong with it if you don't mind it.
That said, I never nursed her to sleep so she'd never have the association. |
Anonymous
I'm fascinated by how this is possible. During day feedings as a newborn she never fell asleep while nursing? |
Anonymous
Yep, yep, and yep. Babies are dependent creatures. There is no such thing as an "independent" baby. So why should they fall asleep by themselves? I nursed dd to sleep for as long as she would let me -- around 15 months or so, she stopped falling asleep while nursing, so it was just part of our bedtime routine. She's now 4 and falls asleep by herself no problem. She still likes cuddles though! |
Anonymous
| Similar story to 16:06. I nursed DD to sleep every night until she was just over a year and weaned. She had no problem transitioning. First we did a bottle at bedtime for a few weeks, then once I stopped pumping, she had some milk in a sippy cup and then we went up to her room and cuddled as she fell asleep. We still do that at 17 months, i.e., milk/storytime, then cuddle to sleep. Every baby is different of course, but I'd agree with most of the PPs and say follow your instincts. |
Anonymous
could you clarify what you mean? |
Anonymous
| I am relieved to hear that others did this for at least a year. DD is 5 months and loves it. It feels like such a privilege to be able to do this. She will go to sleep with a bottle. |
Anonymous
A lot of sleep training books explain what is true for many kids, that if they fall asleep in one condition, they will need that condition to fall back asleep when they inevitably wake up a little at night. So if you nurse to sleep, you may increase the chances that your baby will want to nurse again once or twice at night. Some people find that if they cut out nursing to sleep, the baby then sleeps through the night. I assume that's the potential problem the OP was asking about. |
Anonymous
| i stopped around 7 months, when it got too hard to keep him asleep between rocker and crib |