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nursing to sleep
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Anonymous
There are a lot of things I am not really interested in as a parent. Given the choice, I wouldn't deal with a baby with yogurt in her hair. Given the choice, I wouldn't deal with recurrent ear infections. Given the choice, I wouldn't deal with poopy diapers. However, my interests are not the primary concern now that I have the responsibility of taking care of my DC and I believe that a little lost sleep over the years on my part is necessary for her growth and development. Put more succinctly: my parents were there for me when I needed them in the middle of the night and it made me feel secure. It's my job to do the same for my child. |
Anonymous
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DS is 11.5 mos. His whole life he has gone back and forth between phases of falling asleep nursing or ending feedings (on his own) while still awake. These changes have never been in response to me changing anything about our routine. Until 11 mos, when he was in a "stay awake" phase, we rocked to sleep (usually <10 min). Recently, he started fighting the crib (even if seemingly asleep when put in), so we did some mild sleep training: rock a minute only after nursing, put down, let fuss for a minute, go back and soothe if still fussing after a minute. Within a week he was falling asleep in the crib without complaint.
Even during "nurse to sleep" phases, he has been a good napper at daycare and could go to sleep rocking if given a bottle before bed. |
Anonymous
I think this is off the point of the thread. My point was basically, if you're not planning on sleep training, I don't see the problem with nursing at night. If all you had to do to get your child to sleep through the night was start nursing earlier in the evening, then cuddle and put the baby down drowsy by awake, as is true for some people, they might prefer to do that. Maybe they aren't getting enough sleep to drive safely or to interact well with their other children. Whatever. There's no need to have the sleep train or not debate here. |
Anonymous
Well, it's not so cut and dry...if your baby fusses/cries in the middle of the night because you're not nursing her, doesn't that mean that she's waking up upset? It's really not at all selfish to not want your baby to wake up upset; I would hate it if I woke up and was completely confused and upset. Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution has a section on this - basically, everyone wakes up at night but we go right back to sleep. If we woke up on the kitchen floor instead of the bed, however, we'd be jarred awake by this startling realization and would have trouble going back to sleep, and would probably be upset. I have no problem getting up at night and tending to my baby, but if there's something I can do to keep her from getting upset at night, I'm going to do it. That being said, sleep associations don't always create night wakening problems - nothing works for every baby, but I just want to make the point that it's not selfish to not want your kid to wake up crying because he's not being nursed. I want my kid to depend on me for comfort, but I don't want to create situations that require comfort and soothing if they can be avoided. |
Anonymous
| Do not ever worry about this one;;;my baby nursed to sleep for at least the first five months, and slept through the night at two months...she is now over a year old and goes to sleep on her own with the nightly routine of story, rocking and prayers and then put her in crib awake and off to sleep she goes....I also worried in the beginning that she will never fall asleep on her own , but truthfully it always works out and get those little babies to sleep any way possible. |
Anonymous
| I nursed both my kids to sleep at night (and for most naps too) from birth until 12 months and 15 months, respectively. Neither had any trouble going to sleep when we stopped nursing at night. With the first, I had Daddy put him to bed to ease the transition, and that worked fine. Second one cried a little at first when he realized we weren't going to nurse (I was pregnant, had no milk left, and it hurt, so it seemed like the right time to stop), but went to sleep fine with some cuddling. Not nursing to sleep anymore did not have any effect on their ability to sleep through the night. But, I'm not into sleep training or books like Weissbluth, so my babies having a sleep association with nursing for a year or so didn't bother me. I'm sure that there are some babies who might find nursing to sleep harder to give up than mine have, but even if I knew mine was one of those I would probably wait and deal with it at the point that it was time to wean rather than try to keep them awake after nursing from birth on -- is that even possible? |