Stopping Feeding to sleep

I have stopped feeding to sleep at the start of the night (I actually stopped a while ago though) but still feed to sleep throughout the night because I have a toddler and I just don’t have it in me to deal with longer wake ups 😂

We've recently stopped (switched to rocking with a dummy) and haven't noticed a difference yet! We do feed back to sleep during the night too. He is teething again though so I'm still holding out hope!

I've not fed to sleep at bedtime since around 5 months. He still wakes for 1 feed and has done since 5 weeks (except regressions and growth spurts where he'll wake a couple times) so I'd say it hasn't changed anything, but he does go down easier. I get him ready for bed, put him in his cot and turn the light off and he instantly falls asleep.

Yes! It works. It really works! Sleep dependentcy always leads to broken sleep, even rocking is still a dependentcy. They get to the end of the sleep cycle, realise your gone and wake up wanting you. Falling aleep on their own is a game changer. We just worked with my cousins wife who is a infant sleep specialist. She helped us gently work on it, no cry it out. We have just finished her course and now we can put her down in her cot, kiss her on the head, leave and she goes to sleep all on her own. She is doing 10-12 hour stretches of sleep now and self settling in the night without asking for feeds cause she isn't dependent on it anymore. Two 2hour naps per day just put her in bed. Unbelievable 😎😁🤯! Life changing for the whole family. She's called "jess.sleep.secrets" on Instagram. X

I didnt see a massive difference until I stopped feeding to sleep in the night as well. However stopping feeding to sleep for naps/bedtime made them easier

I think it will be really dependent on the baby. I still feed mine to sleep and "usually" he sleeps until 5am ish and then I feed him and he sleeps until I get him up at 6.30 so not sure it would make a difference to us. However he does settle himself for naps when we do them at home so maybe this helps. I would say if yours is a bad sleeper then it might be worth giving it a go! Do they settle for naps without feeding? That might be worth trying first if the nights are harder?

@Simone Definately the nap settling helps. Cause he physically has the skill. Mine was a TERRIBLE sleeper her whole life and now she is self settling she is about the same as yours sleeps till 5-6 then a feed then sleep till 7 x

@Simone @Natalie sounds amazing! So happy you both have that! Any tips for getting baby to self settle? Does it mean leaving them in the room alone or sitting on the side of the crib? I'd love a long stretch at night

I did mine so slowly from about 16 weeks and it comes and goes. I basically made sure he was tired and then put him in the cot (with a comforter now but not when he was younger) if he cried which happened a bit at first I'd pick him up and just hold him until he stopped then pop him back down and so on. I'd probably stop and just rock him after maybe 5 times and try again the next day. I sit on a chair across the room now until he goes to sleep and mostly he settles after a bit of a play but if he's teething or something I might have to pick him up once or twice. What really helped us was when he went down to two naps as he was actually really tired when he went down for a nap. Whereas on 3 naps we were always trying to squeeze them in.

I am planning on moving away from feeding to sleep at night but he goes to nursery in 2 weeks so I'm going to wait until after that I think.

@Hafiza We didn't cry it out it was a very slow process slowly working from phasing out rocking to eventually working on the cot. We were at our limit and couldn't get it to work so we got a one to one course with a sleep therapist, all online, expensive but worth every penny. Life changing! Her name is jess.sleep.secrets on instragram.

thank u so much for the replies ladies really appreciate it. Hope your little ones continue to sleep well and even better! Xx