My five month old enjoys being bf to sleep. I like it too and know she’s only little once! Will she outgrow the need naturally or will I have to intervene?
What are your experiences? When did your baby outgrow this and how? Was it overnight or did you notice subtle changes?
No cry it out solutions please.
I also bf my daughter to sleep. After 7 months, I weaned her from the breast to a bottle. She still fell asleep with the bottle. By the time she was 10-11 months old, she would just be very drowsy by the time she was done with her bottle and I would quickly take the bottle from her mouth and give her a pacifier and put her in her bed while she was still slightly awake. Once she started putting herself to sleep after having a bottle, I started to wean her from the bottle. Now, at 14 months, she takes no bottles. I just give her a pacifier while she’s fully awake and tell her "sleepy, night, night" and lay her down in her crib and walk out and she puts herself to sleep. As I said, I started this process at 7 months and she’s now 14 months. It was a long 7 month process, but it worked for my baby in a natural way without any drastic changes. She has a lot of trust in me and is a very secure baby because of this. Good luck!
EDIT: I want to add that I used breastmilk in her bottles. I wanted to start weaning from the breast early because I felt that the older she got, the harder it would be and I was afraid of attachment issues…lol
i stopped brestfeeding at 2. I use a milk formula now and i add little beer in it. Puts him to sleep like a little sheep
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Comment by Shelby — October 26, 2009 @ 10:56 pm
In my experience ( 2 kids ) they out grew it naturally. Eventually the slept 6 hours, then 7 hours a night and so on. I was lucky and went from breast to milk at age one. I had stopped "breast feeding" about 5 months due to teeth…but continued to pump. When it was time to transistion to cow milk, I mixed 75/25 (breast/cow) and slowly intergrated into the cow milk. But it’s natural progression.
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Comment by cattma — October 26, 2009 @ 11:42 pm
I don’t believe in the "cry it out" either. My baby is 2 1/2 months old and i bf her to sleep too. In a matter of fact, thats usually the only way i can get her to sleep.
Its comforting for them and i don’t think anything is wrong with it. They will stop doing it the older they get and when they are ready to
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Comment by NewMommy — October 27, 2009 @ 12:02 am
I also bf my daughter to sleep. After 7 months, I weaned her from the breast to a bottle. She still fell asleep with the bottle. By the time she was 10-11 months old, she would just be very drowsy by the time she was done with her bottle and I would quickly take the bottle from her mouth and give her a pacifier and put her in her bed while she was still slightly awake. Once she started putting herself to sleep after having a bottle, I started to wean her from the bottle. Now, at 14 months, she takes no bottles. I just give her a pacifier while she’s fully awake and tell her "sleepy, night, night" and lay her down in her crib and walk out and she puts herself to sleep. As I said, I started this process at 7 months and she’s now 14 months. It was a long 7 month process, but it worked for my baby in a natural way without any drastic changes. She has a lot of trust in me and is a very secure baby because of this. Good luck!
EDIT: I want to add that I used breastmilk in her bottles. I wanted to start weaning from the breast early because I felt that the older she got, the harder it would be and I was afraid of attachment issues…lol
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Me! Mommy of a beautiful 14 month old girl and another baby girl just 4 months away!
Comment by a new day — October 27, 2009 @ 12:41 am
I do not believe in cry it out either. I was still nursing my son to sleep at nap and at night when he was 20 months old. I didn’t mind as this is my job. I started nursing him less and less at a time because i was pregnant and it was really hurting me. Eventually I just rocked him to sleep. Now we sit out side his door until he falls asleep. He is now 29 months old.
His baby brother is now 2 months old and never needs to be nursed to sleep. Instead he needs to be swaddled, turned on his side, rocked back and forth and a shhhhh noise. Then he needs to be put in his swing for a while.
My first still doesn’t really sleep though the night and my second slept though after about a week. Every child is different.
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Comment by milk making mama Liam is HERE! — October 27, 2009 @ 12:57 am
Outgrowing the want to nurse to sleep is the last step in fully weaning. It can vary from child to child.
My oldest son stopped nursing to sleep at 19 months and hasn’t nursed since. This was mostly due to my being 26 or so weeks pregnant. I think that if I hadn’t been pregnant he would still be nursing. It was a slow process though. Some bed times (this includes naps) he’d fall asleep, others he’d nurse then roll over and go to sleep, or he’d fall asleep nursing. It depended on how his day was. Slow days at home usually equalled no nursing to sleep. Busy days out and about usually equalled nursing to sleep. It wasn’t an overnight thing.
Like you said they’re only little once and you can keep nursing her to sleep for as long as you both mutually desire. She won’t be needing you to nurse her to sleep while she’s in college.
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Comment by Me. — October 27, 2009 @ 1:22 am