Are breastfed babies harder to get on a nap schedule?

[Anonymous]

Baby is six months old and still not on any kind of nap schedule. She always falls asleep nursing no matter what I do and then wakes up the second I put her down and won’t go back to sleep for hours. She is only happy napping on me and at the breast. She’s a good night sleeper.

Like the other mom with nap issues, I don’t know what to do. I know she’s sleep-deprived and tired as she falls asleep in the stroller on walks and is cranky.

[Anonymous]

Yes! Both my kids were on great sleep schedules with pumped bottles and nanny. Both constantly dozed and “snuckled” with me on weekends.

[Anonymous]

No I actually thought my milk was magical and put babies to sleep. I didn’t let babies nap on me at all though and woke them until they had drained both sides. A 6 month old shouldn’t be that hard to keep awake during nursing.

Also, by 9 months or so, my babies completely stopped falling asleep nursing and had to be trained to go down on their own. They just didn’t have that same tiredness anymore.

[Anonymous]

IME yes. Baby does much better with a bottle. On weekends he falls asleep at the breast but remains awake when he takes a bottle from nanny or DH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No I actually thought my milk was magical and put babies to sleep. I didn’t let babies nap on me at all though and woke them until they had drained both sides. A 6 month old shouldn’t be that hard to keep awake during nursing.

Also, by 9 months or so, my babies completely stopped falling asleep nursing and had to be trained to go down on their own. They just didn’t have that same tiredness anymore.

DP here and it is unbelievable hard if not impossible to keep my six month old awake on the breast. I have tried everything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No I actually thought my milk was magical and put babies to sleep. I didn’t let babies nap on me at all though and woke them until they had drained both sides. A 6 month old shouldn’t be that hard to keep awake during nursing.

Also, by 9 months or so, my babies completely stopped falling asleep nursing and had to be trained to go down on their own. They just didn’t have that same tiredness anymore.

OP here and it’s not my milk that’s magical, it’s my breasts! Baby takes a breastmilk bottle and stays awake but falls asleep on my breast.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Baby is six months old and still not on any kind of nap schedule. She always falls asleep nursing no matter what I do and then wakes up the second I put her down and won’t go back to sleep for hours. She is only happy napping on me and at the breast. She’s a good night sleeper.

Like the other mom with nap issues, I don’t know what to do. I know she’s sleep-deprived and tired as she falls asleep in the stroller on walks and is cranky.

She is on a nap schedule. At the breast.

[Anonymous]

To be fair, I've never fed my kids formula, so can't compare. But we used night nurses for the first six weeks after birth and one thing they were great with was getting them on a napping/eating schedule. Obviously sometimes they wanted to eat whenever, but by six weeks DH and I knew what we were aiming for and by 3 months we had the babies napping at specific times (or within a half hour either way of those times).

[Anonymous]

I have an EBF baby whom I never nursed to sleep and who was definitely on a “schedule” at 6m (with varying nap lengths but consistent number of naps and awake windows). So ymmv. I think your problem is the nursing to sleep/holding to nap and not breast milk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have an EBF baby whom I never nursed to sleep and who was definitely on a “schedule” at 6m (with varying nap lengths but consistent number of naps and awake windows). So ymmv. I think your problem is the nursing to sleep/holding to nap and not breast milk.

+1 (x2 kids)

[Anonymous]

Yes breastmilk is magical and does encourage sleeping and then you move her away from your warm body, the smell of milk and mom, and WOOOO what happened?

Youll need to work on unlatching as soon as she is done to limit the comfort sucking. I would assume that she is still latched and then you unlatch her to put her down? This didnt work for mine until about a year honestly. If I tried to unlatch he would just go back to nursing for 2 minutes and then suckle again repeat repeat repeat but eventually I could latch and ninja roll away. I did almost all naps either side-lying or reclined back in the recliner.

Also my kid had the opposite- great nap schedule horrible night sleeper.

[Anonymous]

I don't think so- I had one BF and one almost all formula or bottle fed and didn't see a difference in getting them on nap schedules.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have an EBF baby whom I never nursed to sleep and who was definitely on a “schedule” at 6m (with varying nap lengths but consistent number of naps and awake windows). So ymmv. I think your problem is the nursing to sleep/holding to nap and not breast milk.

+1 (x2 kids)

+2

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have an EBF baby whom I never nursed to sleep and who was definitely on a “schedule” at 6m (with varying nap lengths but consistent number of naps and awake windows). So ymmv. I think your problem is the nursing to sleep/holding to nap and not breast milk.

+1 (x2 kids)

+2

+3. Both of mine were EBF but on a rough schedule by 5-6 months or so, younger with my daughter as she sort of had to work around my older ones schedule (ex nap time daily at 10 am after preschool dropoff). I let them fall asleep while nursing occasionally but definitely didn't make a habit out of it and never had any issues once we sleep trained.

[Anonymous]

I never bottle fed but my first was on a good schedule with a bit of effort. I didn’t have my second on a schedule because I didn’t feel like he needed it (he just naturally took good naps and fed enough to not need more soon afterward).