Anonymous wrote:I have three kids. Nursed the first two to sleep, one is an amazing sleeper, the other one is terrible. Did EPS with third kid. She’s an ok sleeper.

I think a lot is not trainable.

Yup agreed 100%. I think the sleep training industry has a lot to gain by selling you on bad sleep associations so they can have you spend money to teach you their ways. I think it's very much temperamental, and some babies are just more difficult sleepers no matter what. For what it's worth we did E-A-S for all naps and had a horrible, and I mean horrible napper, until we dropped to 2 at 6 months. He was good at night the whole time months 0-4, sleeping through until 4 month regression (and was fed to sleep until 5 months when we sleep trained). We'll see what happens if/when we have future kids.

I wouldn't worry about nursing to sleep for the first few weeks. When wake windows start to get longer is when I would suggest starting.

I think it did help my first who was a terrible sleeper. My second is only four months, and I often follow it, but not always. It doesn't seem to matter with her. I think she's just naturally a good sleeper.

So yeah, I think it can help, but a lot of is, I agree, luck of the draw. I'd try and see how baby responds to it.

With my first, I always nursed him when he woke up just because it ended up working out that way. I nursed him to sleep only at night.

With my second, I generally nursed him to sleep, again mostly because it just seemed to work out that way.

Neither had sleep issues. I think that's just luck of the draw.

I have three kids. Nursed the first two to sleep, one is an amazing sleeper, the other one is terrible. Did EPS with third kid. She’s an ok sleeper.

I think a lot is not trainable.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AAP has warned against Babywise so please throw that book in the trash.

Plenty of other experts do warn against nursing to sleep, that's not unreasonable. But find a better book.

Baby Wise is the ONLY philosophy the American Association of Pediatrics ever condemned. Newborns have starved to death on this “plan”. I never heard of it until we were interviewing nannies and our nanny said it was the only philosophy she absolutely would not follow.

I never read baby wise but did taking Cara babies and one of the things I liked about E-A-S is that our feedings always seemed to match up with the recommendations kind of naturally. I have good supply so of course everyone has a different journey. In the beginning it was helpful to be trying to keep the baby awake during feedings - I think she usually got full. But the rhythm of E-A-S worked for us to get the right number of naps and feedings until about 4-5 months, when the wake windows got long enough that feedings every 2-3 hours kind of diverged from naps. But by then we were already in great shape with regard to sleeping.

I do think it means you put in more work in the early weeks getting the baby to sleep, but A) everyone does no matter what and B) you can really lean on the 5Ss in that time. Plus you get more practice because you’re almost never trying to transfer the sleeping baby (I did do a fair amount of “finishing” naps on my chest, but started the vast majority in the crib or bassinet. Anecdotally, my friends who nurse before sleeping end up holding for a lot more naps since they often start that way).

I’ve Always nursed before sleep but not to sleep. When a baby nurses, they get so relaxed and warm and it’s a perfect time to put them down drowsy but awake.

Anonymous wrote:AAP has warned against Babywise so please throw that book in the trash.

Plenty of other experts do warn against nursing to sleep, that's not unreasonable. But find a better book.

Baby Wise is the ONLY philosophy the American Association of Pediatrics ever condemned. Newborns have starved to death on this “plan”. I never heard of it until we were interviewing nannies and our nanny said it was the only philosophy she absolutely would not follow.

I nursed three babies to sleep and they all slept fine. Only had to sleep train 1/3, and him only once.

Currently doing Babywise for the second time. I don't rigidly follow/apply their method, but the "eat/wake/sleep" cycle works great for my 6 week old and I do really like the idea of sticking to the same time for first and last feeding of the day. It gives our days some predictability, which is really helpful for my mental health - especially in COVID times.

E-A-S worked really well for us. We did the Taking Cara Babies newborn class. I think the combo of Baby Whisperer and Karp 5Ss is really good.

AAP has warned against Babywise so please throw that book in the trash.

Plenty of other experts do warn against nursing to sleep, that's not unreasonable. But find a better book.

Agree with the above. I think most important is to break the cycle for middle of the night wakings of feeding back to sleep whenever you are ready for that (for us it was at 5 to 6 months). The whole drowsy but awake thing is overblown. Wake windows and routines are more important in my opinion. And once you get to a certain point, eat-wake-sleep doesn't even work because you need to top them off before a nap anyway.

I think use the magic of nursing for as long as it works for you and then reassess.

I nursed on demand, but nursed my kids to sleep until they were about 9 months old (that's when they started not being put to sleep by the milk and transitioned to being put down drowsy but awake). My kids were and are excellent sleepers. I actually think nursing to sleep made them even better sleepers because I was so consistent with putting them to bed on time and with a routine. I'm sorry your kids were bad sleepers, but I don't think nursing to sleep was the cause.

Some things I did that I thought helped sleep: Super consistent with the times I put them to sleep, I let them fuss for 5 min or so before getting them and often they went back to sleep. We did a weisbluth style (I think?!) sleep training at around 6 months where I patted their bellies and went back in every 5 and then every 15 min. No bad crying or anything, they just learned that there's no nursing in the middle of the night.

We did Babywise from jump and loved it. Couldn't have survived with out it.

That being said, schedules are not for everyone, and I do think eat-wake-sleep can really help even without schedules. Lots of other less controversial books/systems recommend that as well, like I think Taking Cara Babies, and the Baby Whisperer. Eating is just the absolutely toughest sleep association to break. Strongly recommend.

I’m due next month with number three. My first two I nursed before sleep and I believe it contributed to them being the awful sleepers they were. I just read “Babywise” and while I disagree with the majority of the book and won’t follow their rigid schedule, I do feel like it makes sense to nurse when the baby wakes up and not necessarily always before sleep. Has anyone does this with success? Is it helpful?