Thanks Saram -- I am going to have a look at that. I have actually read a lot of it online already. The funny thing is that he doesn't (usually) feed to sleep during the day -- only night. Although today I just asked him how he would like to go to sleep for his nap and he pointed to our BF chair so I did because it's VERY VERY hot today so who can be bothered arguing?!
Last night, I fed him to sleep with a sippy bottle of cow's milk in his hand! Very cute he held on to it for ages even when falling asleep on the boob! But in the end, he slept from 730-430 with only a little wake and my husband was sleeping w him and settled him with a pat adn some water!
Let's hope for more of those!
Yes I think I will buy a bed -- twin or double. I took the sides off his cot yesterday and it just looks so unsafe -- the rail sits at the same height as the mattress and the whole things still seems high ...
Hi Nox. I was in the same boat until very recently... DS was waking every couple of hours though the night and I was BF him back to sleep. However, I came to the conclusion that he wasn't going to outgrow it himself and so I have been working hard to get him to a point where he can self settle without needing to be fed back to sleep all night.
This is what I did:
Step 1: I fed him to sleep initially, but when he woke I would pat and delay feeding. I wouldn't let him feed to sleep. When he attached I would move to an angle so that it was hard for him to stay on the boob. He would fall off and whinge and reattach, but after a few attempts he would give up and go to sleep. After a few days he got to a point where he would feed for a few seconds before rolling away and going back to sleep by himself.
Step 2: When he woke up, I refused to BF him back to sleep at all - I would offer patting and shushing and if he still needed something I would give him a bottle of rice milk (apparently sweeter like breastmilk). Much to my surprise, he took the bottle and went to sleep. He wasn't entirely happy about it and whinged a bit (no crying though), I spent up to an hour patting/shushing/offering bottle instead until he got back to sleep himself.
So far this has taken two weeks and we are now at a point where he doesn't expect a BF during the night. The past few nights he has not even woken for it - last night he slept from 9pm-5am, he stirred a couple of times and I was able to shush him back to sleep.
I think it is definitely a prioity to break the feed to sleep association, after that he should start sleeping for longer periods.
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