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Hi,
DD2 is 5 months and a week old. I have nearly always breastfed her to sleep as it was so quick and easy especially with a toddler running around the house whilst i settled DD2.
But now it's really the only method she's used to day and night and i want to try to encourage her to learn to settle herself in the most gentle way possible. Or at least so DH can settle her to sleep.
Any advice?
Have you read "The No-Cry Sleep Solution" book? It has some suggestions on how to gently stop feeding to sleep. I think it mentioned giving bub a feed and then putting bub down awake, but drowsy. If bub cries, feed again and try putting him/her down awake again. Keep repeating until bub goes to sleep. Over time you can start to put your bub down to sleep without making him/her drowsy.
I borrowed a copy of the book from my local library. :)
No real advice on how to enforce going to sleep without boob. Just to say that my DS is 25 months old and still feeds to sleep when he isn't tired enough to drop off alone. When I'm not home (rarely) he will go to sleep for DP, but if I"m around, it's mainly the boob that still does the trick, unless he's particularly weary enough to just drop off. I don't see it as particularly tedious, because I use it as my 'quiet time' - I wouldn't take a breather otherwise, and it's like a built in mechanism to just chill out for a bit, till the kid falls asleep! If you can afford to take the time out from your DD1, then I wouldn't force the issue :) She won't be feeding to sleep at age 8 - it's a blip in time, really, even at 2 and a bit years in our case (out of how many years he'll be under my care, slowly removing himself from my influence!) ;)