Breastfed baby won't sleep on his own

I’m in the same boat and my breastfed baby will be one in a week. I don’t know how else to get her to sleep without contact. She’s wakes up if she notices I’m not touching her. I don’t know what to do either.

I’m currently going through this now with my 3 month old. It got so bad ( as soon as I laid him horizontal for the cot he cried ) that he now sleeps in the bed with me and my partner now stays in the spare room. If i’m away from him he wakes pretty quickly and I have to settle him with my breast until he falls asleep with it in his mouth. For now this is routine and I’m hoping he’ll just grow out of it as he starts to (hopefully) sleep through the night but I understand the struggle of going to bed early! I have no solution but you’re not alone😅

I have the same issue with my 5 month old. My back is so sore from lying at an odd angle for 13 hours every night too.

Most breastfed babies do this

This actually has little to do with BF, but with the type of baby. There are BF babies who sleep through the night, there are FF babies who wake every 20 minutes

That doesnt make it any less rough, but good to know that BF isn’t the culprit. There are studies that show that EBF mums sleep more than FF ones (mainly because BF to sleep is the quickest way to get a baby to sleep)

The best thing you can do is not struggle against it. Accepting that this is the phase you are in. Getting help with other things (at this stage you need help with household, food, admin. You should just look after yourself and the baby). Yes it’s hard, but it will get better with time. For me around 6m it was a bit better, around 10m even better and since 12-13m I say my sleep is fine (not sleeping through, but I get enough sleep). The only way I was able to achieve this is to safely co-sleep

Second more practical tip, could you make bedtime later? My baby would go around 10pm at that time, that’s totally ok

Mine is almost 11 mo and is still doing it 😀

Completely normal. Babies are designed to be close to caregivers thats how they biologically designed. Its a surviving mechanism

I’m in a similar boat to you. Try unlatching him before he falls asleep while he’s still drowsy and cuddle him to sleep. He’ll resist initially but it’ll mean he won’t associate the boob with sleep. And that’ll make it a little easier.