Babies: 3 - 6 Months
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i can't nurse to sleep anymore.
I've tried and tried to get LO to fall asleep without nursing but it's just not happening. The only other way to get him to fall asleep is to put him in the swing. But he's already over 4 months and I'm afraid that at this point these habits are just going to get harder and harder to break. Nursing to sleep was fine for me for a while, but now I just feel so stuck. I also feel like I should be teaching him more self-soothing skills.
Also, please don't send me the kellymom article on this.... I have it bookmarked and though I read it over and over again, I guess I just need some reassurance/new ideas...
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Re: i can't nurse to sleep anymore.
I can give you some reassurance and ideas.
As for reassurance - I nursed DD #1 to sleep whenever I was with her until she weaned. When I wasn't around she had no issues going to sleep without nursing, so I think it's possible to have a combo of sleep routines.
As for ideas - If you're ready to stop nursing to sleep, you might try The Pantley Pull-Off method. There's details on it in The No Cry Sleep Solution but I'm betting you can Google up some info as well. Basically you start with nursing to sleep as usual but pop your boob out of his mouth right before he falls asleep. You'll gradually be able to get him off the boob earlier and earlier until eventually you can nurse, put him down drowsy, and he'll fall asleep without sucking.
I know everyone does different sleep training, but just a few things that helped me when I was trying to "break him from the boob" a little.
I would snuggle him up to me like he was going to nurse, but sneak the paci in his mouth instead. Once he was out, I would swaddle him up and put him in his crib. If he woke up, I would try to just replace the paci at first and if he wouldn't go for it, I'd do the snuggle move again. Eventually the paci would work at night and then it got to where I could just snuggle him laying next to me in bed and he'd go to sleep and now he'll go to sleep on his own. It took a while, but once he got used to the paci, he really started doing it himself. I also started using a lovie and that helped too. I slept with it for a few nights at first so it would smell like me and then I would stuff it between us when we snuggled. He would hold on to it and pull it to his face and once he was asleep I would just put it toward the bottom of the crib, out of his way.
Now he actually prefers to go to sleep on his own with just the lovie and his paci. Sucks 'cause I miss the snuggles
, but I can tell he's much happier. I put him in the crib and he rolls to his side holding his lovie and sacks out.
HTH. It took a while to get to this point, but it's totally doable. And it got easier as he got a little older. We started when he was around 2 months and now it's obvious he's cool with it.
ETA: We quit swaddling about a month ago.
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I can generally tell a difference in the suck pattern and swallowing. Both of the girls were/are pretty consistent with sucking and I can hear the swallows. Once the comfort nursing starts I might get a suck, suck, suck .... pause ... suck ... pause ... suck, suck. If that makes sense. lol It's hard to describe!
You can listen for swallows to tell the difference between active nursing and comfort nursing. I still nurse to sleep at bedtime, but we "bounce" to sleep for naps and if he gets up in the middle of the night and doesn't fall back to sleep on his own.
As for nursing to sleep, you might want to try to nurse to sleep for bedtime and then any middle of the night wakings, pull him off as soon as he's done eating. I've done this and usually, ds is so tired, he'll go right back down. I do this for burping - he'll eat and be half asleep, I'll unlatch him and burp him. He's awake enough to hold his head up while I carry him back to bed and then lay him down. I do all of this in the dark for the most part and he usually goes right back to sleep.
I have a hard time telling too. I swear instantly his eyes are closed and it seems he is comfort sucking. I rarely hear swallowing noises and his neck is too chubby to see his throat.
DS didn't figure out how to put himself back to sleep in the middle of the night until the last few weeks. Some babies just take longer. I still nurse him to sleep most of the time, but if he doesn't need to eat in the middle of the night, I don't.
There's no way he would have self-soothed at 4 months. He had barely started to do it at 5 months.
Thank you for this reality check! I guess I am just listening too much to the advice of others who tell me to "let him self-soothe." They don't know what they're talking about.... DH and I know LO best. This is a very helpful reminder that every baby is different!!
Yay!
We've always done what works. It really helped us to get a video monitor. When he woke up in the middle of the night once, we decided to just watch him and see what he'd do if we didn't go get him. He's wasn't upset or anything. He just spun in a circle, then went back to sleep. That's when we knew he was getting better at self-soothing. He's still learning at 6 months, though!